


Looking to the past, living in the present (stumbling into the future)

by Shadowscast



Series: Enough Time [6]
Category: Once a Thief (TV)
Genre: Asexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Coping Strategies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Help Yourself By Helping Others, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage Sex, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, life goes on - Freeform, past self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 101,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23042563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowscast/pseuds/Shadowscast
Summary: Li Ann, Mac and Vic adjust to their changed circumstances.
Relationships: Mac Ramsey/Li Ann Tsei, Victor Mansfield & Li Ann Tsei, Victor Mansfield/Mac Ramsey
Series: Enough Time [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1297466
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The characters were still living in my head, so I decided that they could have another adventure.
> 
> Thanks so much to Yourlibrarian for the beta-reading, idea-bouncing, joy-sharing and encouragement!

**November 12th, 1999**

Li Ann felt very strange that morning as she walked into the Agency, knowing that Mac and Vic would never be joining her here again. For so long, she'd been part of a team—a trio. Now she was on her own. And she wasn't even a field agent anymore; she was ... what? She still didn't know.

* * *

The Director was waiting behind her desk in the briefing room. She granted Li Ann a smile and nodded towards the single chair facing the desk.

"The halls were bustling this morning," Li Ann murmured as she sat down—unsettled confusion masquerading as small talk. The Agency's corridors were always empty. She and the boys had often joked about the post-apocalyptic feel of it. But today the hall had been full of purposeful-looking strangers in business attire, many of whom had nodded casual greetings at Li Ann as they strode briskly past her.

"Ah, yes, that would seem strange to you, wouldn't it?" the Director mused. She tapped her red-enamelled fingernails on the surface of her desk. "Now that you're not a field agent anymore, you're no longer under quarantine."

"Quarantine?" Li Ann frowned.

"Yes, we do try to minimize the contact field agents have with other Agency personnel. The policy is that agents at risk of capture and interrogation should know as few faces as possible."

"Oh." Li Ann sat back in her chair, mildly disturbed. "Well, that makes sense, I guess. So, what exactly _am_ I going to be doing now?" She asked the question with some trepidation. She'd accepted this promotion without any actual idea of what her new role would be. It had seemed like a reasonable thing to do at the time, especially with Vic giving her pep talks about changing the Agency from within—but now that she was here, all by herself in front of the Director, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder what the hell she'd gotten herself into.

The Director smirked. "Have you ever wondered where new little baby agents come from?"

"You're putting me into recruitment," Li Ann deduced.

"It's an important role," the Director said. "And a busy one, considering the attrition rate of field agents. For your first assignment: I need a new lead action team, starting immediately."

"I'm supposed to find replacements for me and the boys?" Li Ann blinked, feeling rather daunted. "Uh ... how, exactly?"

"Well, you know _where_ we recruit from," the Director said.

Li Ann nodded. "Prison."

"The incarcerated population is your haystack," the Director said. "Your job is to find me a nice, sharp needle."

"Could you clarify that?" Li Ann asked, and pulled out a notebook. "Maybe a little less metaphorically?"

"Hm," the Director said. "Well, you'll have a lot of leeway. Agency recruitment really is more of an art than a science. Of course we're always on the lookout for candidates with useful skills, but don't feel like you need to find someone at the level of yourself or Mac—we do have resources for training. The key thing to look out for is _motivation_. That and team dynamics."

Li Ann looked up from the notes she'd started scribbling— _leeway_ , _art_ , _training_ , _motivation_ , _team_. "So I'll be, what, interviewing prisoners?"

The Director gave a little shrug. "That's a good idea, once you've narrowed down the search to a few likely-looking candidates based on their files, but don't show your hand—we can't reveal the Agency's existence to someone and then let them off the hook."

Li Ann frowned. "You told me about the Agency the first time we met."

"Ah, but I wasn't your first Agency contact," the Director said. "You'd already been vetted. Do you remember the day a plumber came into your cell to replace the toilet?"

"Yes," Li Ann said. It had been a memorable experience. "He was completely incompetent. He took the entire day to do it, he actually flooded my cell twice, I had to show _him_ how to work the acetylene torch—"

The Director was nodding slowly.

"Oh," Li Ann said. "I see. But I don't know anything about plumbing."

"Neither does Agent McDonough, apparently," the Director pointed out. "But in any case, you can choose your own cover. Social worker or legal aid lawyer are a couple of more traditional choices. Experiment—find what works for you."

Li Ann closed her notebook. "And I'm looking for three new agents?"

"Actually, just one. To start with, anyway." The Director steepled her fingers over the desk. "When your team got tied up in Key River all summer, I moved Jackie into the lead position, and partnered her with Paul. I want you to find someone to round out their team."

"Wait," Li Ann said. " _Paul_? Michael's Paul? I thought he was locked up."

The Director looked mildly amused. "Waste not, want not."

"Paul wants me and Mac _dead_ ," Li Ann reminded her. "Very badly."

"Oh, I think he's over that," the Director said. "He's had some therapy. I understand it was quite cathartic for him. In any case, don't worry, he won't be coming anywhere near you. You're in the background now. Like I said, we mostly keep the field agents away from the support staff."

* * *

" _Paul_ is out?" Vic repeated, incredulous. "But he wants to _kill_ you."

"Not anymore, apparently," Li Ann said. She frowned at the thick stack of files Nathan had given her—each of them a felon between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, with at least ten years left on their sentence. She wasn't quite sure how to get started, so she just sort of spread them on out on the floor in front of her.

The floor was her only option—Vic's coffee table and couch were stacked with packing boxes.

"And the Director's got him working with _Jackie_?" Vic continued, still obviously taken aback. "He held her hostage at gunpoint the first time they met."

"Jackie held _me_ hostage at gunpoint the first time _we_ met," Mac pointed out. He was in the process of wrapping newspaper around Vic's coffee mugs and tucking them into a box on the dining room table. "The Director obviously doesn't see that as a barrier to a productive working relationship."

"Well, I guess Jackie turned out okay in the end," Vic allowed. "Maybe Paul will too."

"So, wait," Mac said. "If Paul's the new me, does that make Jackie the new Li Ann, or the new Vic?"

Vic rolled his eyes and tucked newspaper around a plate.

Li Ann shook her head. "Paul isn't the new you." _Don't make the mistake of thinking of Paul as analogous to Mac,_ the Director had warned her explicitly. _Michael may have replaced one with the other, but they're nothing alike. Mac, despite his brutal history, has a gentle soul. Paul is a thug._ At the end of their meeting, the Director had given Li Ann several hours' worth of video of Paul and Jackie's interactions, to help Li Ann figure out what was missing from their team dynamic. "Paul is sullen and quiet. Jackie's finding him really depressing to work with. I think I need to find someone with higher energy for Jackie to bounce off of."

"Oh, in that case," Vic said, looking over Li Ann's shoulder as he set the wrapped plate in an open box, "try her." He pointed at one of the files.

"Nastassja Momomamet," Li Ann read. "A contract killer. You know her?"

"We interviewed her for a case once," Vic said. "She's got the energy to keep up with Jackie, no worries there."

Mac peered over at the file. "Oh, I remember her. Momo's widow. Didn't she say that Momo did all the killing, though? She was just the driver."

"Of course she _said_ that," Vic scoffed. "But forensics found her prints all over the guns."

"Actually, a driver wouldn't be a bad addition to the team," Li Ann mused. "Did you know that neither Jackie nor Paul knows how to drive? The Director's tearing her hair out over it. She even sent them to driver's ed, and they both flunked out."

Mac snickered.

"I knew that about Jackie," Vic mentioned. "She always had a chauffeur, back when she was a mob queen." He frowned. "She treated _me_ like her chauffeur when we went out on missions together."

Li Ann, meanwhile, was flipping through the rest of the file. "Actually, Nastassja really might be suitable. Thanks, Vic."

"And just like that, her fate is sealed." Mac made a sound effect like a door closing—or maybe a missile landing and exploding? It was a little unclear. He punctuated it by placing a wrapped mug in the packing box with exaggerated care. "How does it feel, Li Ann? Becoming God?"

Li Ann frowned at Mac. "Ah, what?"

"Deciding who to sacrifice on the Agency's altar next." Mac busied his hands wrapping another mug, and didn't look at Li Ann.

Li Ann felt her shoulders tensing. "I'm recruiting her to work as an _agent_ —if she passes the interview. I'm not slitting her throat with a silver dagger by the light of a full moon."

"I mean, statistically, you basically are," Mac said. "You know the casualty rate for new agents."

"Nastassja seemed like a tough cookie," Vic said, with slightly forced-sounding levity. He glanced a little anxiously from Mac to Li Ann, and back again. "And hey, _we_ all made it through."

"Barely," Mac said. "And some of us got thoroughly fucked up along the way."

"Are you saying that you don't think I should choose her?" Li Ann asked, keeping her voice mild with an effort. "I have to recruit _somebody_."

Mac looked up finally, and glared at her. "I'm saying—weren't you supposed to be changing the Agency for the better, somehow?"

"Mac, it's my first day. I'm not in a position to change anything _yet_. And anyway, you know how important field agents are. We saved a lot of people, while we were working."

"And the ends justify the means, yeah?" Mac scowled and picked up another piece of newspaper and the last mug. "Nice. The Director must be very happy with you."

"I think she is," Li Ann agreed, letting a bit of acid into her tone. "Which is good, since I still work for her."

"You sure do," Mac said.

"Uh, guys?" Vic interjected. "Guys! Let's take a break. Ten minutes? Everybody into the bedroom. Now."

"The bedroom?" Mac repeated, sounding incredulous. "Vic, if you're angling for a three-way make-out session, you are _seriously_ misreading the room right now."

"The bed's the only place we can all sit together that's not covered in boxes. Come on." Vic actually took Mac by the hand and tugged him towards the bedroom. Bemused, Li Ann waited a moment to see if she was going to warrant the same treatment—if Vic tried, she was pretty sure she could throw him. But he just looked back at her and gestured with his head. She puffed out a sigh and followed.

"Okay," Vic said when they were all sitting side-by-side on the edge of the bed. "You guys need to talk this out."

"No we don't," Mac said, instantly. "Li Ann chose to keep working for the Agency. There's nothing more to say."

"Mac, we talked about this," Vic said in an undertone. "About how we agreed to be supportive of her choice, whatever it was?"

"Did I agree to that?" Mac asked. "Maybe that was before I knew that her new job would be _trapping_ people. What the hell did Nastassja Momomamet ever do to deserve what's coming to her now?"

"Uh, kill people for money?" Vic suggested.

"Mac, is there _any_ job I could be doing for the Agency that would meet with your approval?" Li Ann cut in. "If the Director had me unfolding paper clips, you'd find a way to get upset about it. You have a—an _irrational_ hatred of the Agency. But you're not an agent anymore. You're out. You've got to let it go."

"It's not irrational!" Mac said. "You _know_ what that place is. What it did to us. What the _Director_ did to us."

"She saved your life!" Li Ann shouted.

Then she took a sharp, trembling breath and pressed her lips together, surprised at herself.

Mac had recoiled with a hurt look that would've made more sense if she'd slapped him. Vic, who'd placed himself between the two of them to start with, wrapped one arm around Mac's shoulders and put his other hand on Li Ann's knee. "Everybody breathe," he said softly.

Li Ann pulled her legs up onto the bed and turned so that she was sitting cross-legged, facing the guys. She didn't shake off Vic's hand during the manoeuvre—his light touch was comforting. "She saved your life, Mac," she repeated much more quietly. "I know she did it in a really problematic way, and I know that you were never happy about working for the Agency, but I am _so_ glad that the Director recruited you. You would have died in prison."

Vic shot a quick frown in Li Ann's direction, and protectively curled his arm a little tighter around Mac. "We don't need to dwell on that," he said.

"No, she's right," Mac said, a little flatly. His gaze was fixed on his own knees. "Sorry, Li Ann."

Li Ann bit her lip and wondered if she shouldn't have brought that up. She could've just brushed off Mac's snippishness and waited for it to abate on its own. It _would_ have, she was pretty sure. In all their time together he'd never been able to stay mad at her for long.

She'd never been able to stay mad at him, either. Except for when she'd found out that he'd tried to kill himself in prison, and that only the Director's far-reaching surveillance had saved him. Thinking about _that_ still filled her with cold fury. Not at Mac, not exactly—just at the part of him that had given up.

"I'm sorry too," she said after a too-long pause, grabbing for something constructive to say out of the tangle of her feelings. "You're not wrong about Nastassja. The casualty rate for field agents is very high. Dobrinsky always made sure we had no illusions on that front. To be honest, when the Director gave me my assignment today, I didn't really think about that. I was just thinking about the puzzle she'd given me—finding the right missing piece to complete Paul and Jackie's team. But Nastassja is a person. The Agency systematically instrumentalizes its field agents. I'm not sure what I can do about that. But at least I should be conscious of it. Thank you, for making me see it."

Vic cleared his throat. "Maybe you should find out whether Nastassja's on track to survive prison or not."

Li Ann blinked at him. "Huh?"

"I mean, think about it. What are we saying here? Working for the Agency is dangerous. But it's better than dying in prison, right? So—maybe that's how you make recruitment ethical. Only tag people who aren't likely to make it to the end of their sentence alive."

Mac let out a sharp laugh. "Yeah, great plan. The Director's gonna love you sending her a bunch of suicidally depressed agents."

"There's more than one way to die in prison," Vic said. "Maybe Nastassja's gonna piss somebody off and get shanked. Or maybe she's gonna shank somebody else and get years added. You can die of old age in prison, too—and I don't think she'd want to go that way."

Li Ann nodded slowly. "I see what you're saying. I think you might have the right idea, Vic. At least I think I have a much better idea of how to interview Nastassja, now." She looked at Mac. "Are we okay? Are _you_ okay?"

He hunched his shoulders. "Sure."

Mac was still on the other side of Vic. Li Ann couldn't really reach him. She put a hand on Vic's knee, instead, as a proxy. "Mac, I love you. You know that, right?"

Mac sighed, and leaned into Vic. "Is that gonna be enough?" he asked. "Fuck, Li Ann. You're in the Agency, and we're out. You're gonna be caught up in all the secrets and manipulations—in the Director's schemes. The Agency _warps_ people. Ever since you said you were going to take the promotion, I've been trying to picture our future together, and I just see you drifting away."

"I promise you, that is not going to happen," Li Ann said fiercely. "I can handle the Agency. It's not going to warp me. And I'm not going to keep secrets from the two of you. Ever."

Vic whistled. "Uh, you wanna maybe keep your _voice_ down while you're promising to spill state secrets to a couple of civilians?"

Li Ann shrugged. "You swept for bugs this morning, right? Like always? And frankly, if the Director thinks I'm going to hide anything from you guys, she doesn't know me very well." Then she got up and crossed in front of the guys so that she was standing in front of Mac. She put a finger under his chin and tilted it up. He didn't resist, but his gaze still looked anxious when his eyes met hers. "Mac, I _promise_ ," she repeated, and leaned down to kiss him. "It's going to be okay."

* * *

Li Ann pulled out the plastic folding chair and sat down, primly tucking her white skirt under her thighs. She smiled courteously at the dark-haired, heavily-tattooed woman who was handcuffed to the table across from her. "Hello, Nastassja. Thank you for agreeing to see me."

The woman gave her a big toothy grin in return. Her lower lip was pierced with a silver hoop, which drew Li Ann's eye as she talked. "Call me Nasty," she said, squirming into as much of a casual slouch as she could manage given the cuffs. "Everybody does. So what can I do ya for, lady?"

"I'm here on behalf of SHTIW," Li Ann said. "The Society for the Humane Treatment of Imprisoned Women. I'm sure you've heard of it?"

"Uh, no," said Nastassja. "Can't say I have. But I'm sure you're gonna tell me?"

Li Ann folded her hands primly on the table in front of her. "I understand that you've been here at Hewlitzer for two years, and you have up to eighteen years left on your sentence. How are you holding up?"

Nastassja laughed. "That's what you wanna know? Okay. I'm fine. Keeping my head down, you know? Think I got a real shot at early parole. Hey, I joined the chess club a couple of months ago. It's a great way to meet smart chicks." She made a suggestive gesture with her fingers, and smirked.

Li Ann cleared her throat. "How are you getting along with the other inmates?"

"Easy-breezy," Nastassja grinned. "I'm not one for drama, okay? I am a low-drama gal, that's me. Those who like me, like me a lot, and those who don't can just walk on by."

"I saw in your file that you'd been in a couple of fights."

Nastassja's grin pulled wider around her lip ring. "I didn't start them. I just finished them. Don't worry about me, shteew-lady. I got a black belt in Aikido, for real. Those jealous bitches ain't never gonna lay a hand on me. And I never even hurt nobody."

"So, all in all, you'd say that you're on track to serve your time, get out, and resume your life?"

"Hells yeah, lady. I learned my lesson. Don't marry no more rat-fink bastard criminals, that's what I learned. When I get outta here I'm gonna go _clean_. Open a tattoo parlour or something. No more killing; that racket's for _losers_."

* * *

The Director was waiting for Li Ann just outside the prison. She was holding a large black umbrella against the chilly spitting rain, and she had a lit cigar. She took a puff as Li Ann walked towards her; the tip glowed red.

"So?" she prompted.

Li Ann shook her head. "She's not a good fit."

"Hm," the Director said. "She was promising on paper. What's wrong with her?"

"The motivation isn't there," Li Ann said. "She's ready to do her time. I think she's happy in prison, actually."

"Too bad," the Director said. "Oh well. Walk with me."

Li Ann had been standing a little apart from the Director, getting wet. Now she ducked under the umbrella and, at the Director's gestured invitation, tucked her arm through the Director's. They started strolling through the dark, gleaming parking lot.

"How are the boys doing?" the Director asked. "Have you seen them since they left the Agency?"

Li Ann frowned at her. "We all had dinner at the Bouchard-Wongs yesterday. Geneviève and Huang hired them as nannies for Taylor. They're starting on Monday. Don't pretend you don't already know all this."

"Really, Li Ann, do you think I care enough about a couple of _ex_ -employees to track their every move?" The Director smirked, and puffed again on her cigar. "I understand it's a live-in position. Is Victor finally giving up that god-awful apartment of his?"

"Not exactly. He's going to sublet it. At least until next September when the current lease ends."

"And how do you feel about all this? Mac and Vic settling down to raise your daughter?"

Li Ann walked in silence for a few moments. "That's a very personal question," she finally remarked.

"You don't have to answer it."

Li Ann shrugged, and gave the Director a suspicious sideways glance. If Mac were here, he'd probably warn her that it was in the moments when the Director seemed the most human and caring that you had to be the most on guard.

"And here we are." They had come up alongside a discreet black Agency limo. Li Ann knew it was an Agency vehicle because Dobrinsky was in the driver's seat with the dome light on. He seemed to be singing, although Li Ann couldn't hear anything through the closed windows—just the spitting patter of the rain on the umbrella. "Mr. Dobrinsky will drive you to the airport," the Director said.

Li Ann blinked. "But I'm not going to the airport. And I came in my own car."

"You are indeed heading for the airport. Your flight to Vancouver's in forty-five minutes, so you'd better hurry."

"Vancouver?" Li Ann stared at the Director, perplexed. "Why?"

"I've set you up to shadow Agent McDonough, the erstwhile plumber. He'll walk you through the ins and outs of the headhunting and vetting process. Though I have to say, you're a natural. I listened in on your interview with Nasty. You drew out her essential characteristics quite deftly. She'll make a fine addition to my lead action team."

"Wait," Li Ann said. "I recommended _against_ recruiting her."

"So you did. But based on your interview, I'd say she's a nearly perfect candidate. I'd worry about your judgment, if I didn't know that you had your own agenda."

Li Ann felt her posture getting stiffer. She tried to relax. "What agenda could I possibly have?"

"Some sort of strange chivalric notion that you should only recruit agents to save them from themselves." The Director snorted. "Mansfield is a bad influence on you. Ditch the shining armour. It's too heavy, it'll slow you down."

"That's not what's happening," Li Ann insisted. Vic's apartment couldn't possibly be bugged; he was so careful! "I really just don't think Nastassja's going to agree to work for you."

"She will," the Director said calmly. "Everybody does, one way or another." She tightened her grip on Li Ann's arm; Li Ann hadn't even consciously realized that she'd been trying to step away. "Earlier today, Mac wanted you to question whether the ends justify the means. That may be a classic philosophical quandary, but the Agency has an official policy on it. The answer is _yes_. The work we do is too important for us to be squeamish about getting our hands dirty. I thought you understood that; that's why I promoted you."

The Director's comments were far too specific to be clever inferences. No point in dancing around it anymore. "You were listening to us," Li Ann concluded with a wince. "This afternoon at Vic's apartment. He missed one of your bugs, somehow."

"Oh, who needs bugs when you've got Jackie in the next apartment over with a stethoscope to the wall?" the Director asked breezily.

Li Ann blinked. "So that's how ... oh my god. But why would you tell me? You know I'm going to tell Vic."

"About that." The Director took a last puff on her cigar. Then she dropped it to the pavement and ground it under her heel. "Let's talk about your loyalties."

"I'm loyal to you," Li Ann promised. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to start hiding things from Mac and Vic."

"So you said this afternoon," the Director remarked. "Emphatically."

The penny dropped. "That's why you're sending me to Vancouver, isn't it? To punish me. And to separate me from Mac and Vic."

"Well, you do need training," the Director said. "Speaking of which, here's a tip: whenever possible, try to choose a course of action that advances more than one of your goals simultaneously."

Li Ann hunched her shoulders. "How long will I be in Vancouver?"

"Six weeks," the Director said. "You can come home on Christmas Eve. And needless to say, you'll stop sharing operational details with outsiders."

Li Ann's first impulse was to meekly acquiesce and get into the limo. But then she thought about the look of worry on Mac's face when he'd talked about her drifting away, and her confident promise to him that it would never happen. "No," she heard herself saying instead.

"No?" the Director repeated, with a lifted eyebrow.

To out-and-out defy the Director was probably futile—but logic and bargaining might work. "Sharing things with them makes me a better agent," Li Ann said. "Interviewing Nastassja was Vic's idea. And it's not like they're just anybody off the street. They already know all about the Agency."

"But they're not a part of it anymore. You need to put up a wall, Li Ann. You're a _secret_ agent."

"No walls." Li Ann lifted her chin. "Not between me and Mac." As she said it, she had a quick flash of memory—steel blast doors slamming shut between Mac and herself. For eighteen months after that, she'd thought he was dead. She shivered.

"I like you, Li Ann," the Director said. "I do. But if you disobey my direct orders, there will be consequences."

"So don't order me to hide things from them." She steeled herself. The Director responded to strength; Li Ann had to stand her ground here. "If you make me choose between Mac and the Agency, I swear I'll walk."

"No you won't." The Director sounded mildly amused. "You need the Agency. We let you use your skills to their fullest and do work that matters. No other job you could get would come anywhere near satisfying you."

"That may be true," Li Ann had to admit. "But Mac is the only family I have left, and that's more important than anything else."

"Ugh." The Director rolled her eyes. "Okay, here's another tip: don't recruit agents with families."

The Director's tone of voice had sounded like a concession. "So you won't order me to censor my conversations with Mac? Or Vic?" Li Ann pressed.

"Knowing the Agency's business can be dangerous," the Director said. "You know that. Think carefully about what you decide to tell them."

"I will," Li Ann promised, and this time it was giddy relief that she hid with her carefully-steady voice. "So does this mean I can skip Vancouver?"

"Oh, you still need training," the Director said, reaching across Li Ann to open the limo's door. "And I'm still annoyed with you. I'll see you after Christmas."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nastassja Momomamet appeared in canon in episode 16, "Kangaroo Court". She was played by Canadian singer-songwriter Bif Naked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Christmas Eve, 1999**

"Merry Christmas," Geneviève greeted Li Ann with a smile at the door. "Come in, come in, it's cold outside."

They exchanged kisses of greeting on both cheeks as Li Ann crossed the threshold. Geneviève's perfume smelled like amber, peony, and sandalwood. She was wearing a single strand of pearls with a simple yet flattering black party dress. Li Ann wondered if she should have dressed up a bit more herself; when Geneviève had invited her to the 'family party,' Li Ann had assumed there'd be more emphasis on the 'family' part than the 'party' part. Li Ann had worn a beige linen suit that she found comfortable and appropriate for work.

At least she hadn't been caught out without presents this year. She still remembered, sheepishly, Vic's poorly-hidden disappointment when she'd shown up for his Christmas party last year empty-handed. This time she had a whole _bag_ of wrapped presents—she'd gone shopping several times over the past few weeks in Vancouver, and found presents for Vic and Mac as well as Taylor, Geneviève and Huang.

Geneviève took Li Ann's coat and overnight bag, and told her to go put her presents under the tree. When Li Ann went into the living room, she found everyone there except for Huang. Taylor and Mac were sitting on the floor, playing with a rainbow-coloured xylophone. Vic was on the couch, just watching them with a contented expression.

Everyone looked up when Li Ann came into the room. Mac immediately broke into a giant grin, and when he stood up to greet her he picked up Taylor too. "Look, Taytay, Li Ann is back!"

"Wanna _play_ ," Taylor objected, squirming in Mac's grip.

"It's okay, let her keep playing," Li Ann said. "We have the whole night." It was understandable if Taylor wasn't particularly excited to see her. Mac had frequently called Li Ann at Taylor's bedtime to get them to say 'goodnight' to each other, in an effort to help them stay connected, but Taylor was too young to really grasp the concept of a phone conversation. "Hey, she can pronounce L's now!" Li Ann suddenly noticed. "That's great! Maybe she'll finally learn how to say _my_ name."

"She's kinda hit-or-miss on them, still," Mac said, meanwhile releasing Taylor so that she could go back to her xylophone. "Anyway, 'Yeena' is a great nickname. I think we should all call you that from now on."

Li Ann rolled her eyes, but then found herself wrapped in a big hug. She squeezed Mac back, leaning into it, even though the bag of presents she was still holding bumped awkwardly against him.

"I missed you," he whispered, sounding a little choked up.

"Me too," she agreed, keeping her voice likewise soft. "It's good to be back."

Finally Mac released her, and Li Ann went to deposit her presents under the tree while he returned to playing with Taylor.

Chopping down a fir tree and propping it up in your living room seemed like a weird way to celebrate a holiday, but the smell of the Bouchard-Wongs' tree brought back surprisingly sharp memories of the previous Christmas. "This is a lot more impressive than the tree you had last year," she mentioned to Vic.

Vic laughed. "Yeah, that thing was scraggly. But it was cheap! So hey, how was your flight?" He patted the sofa cushion next to himself in an inviting way.

"Okay," Li Ann said, dropping down next to him. "We were delayed an hour for de-icing in Winnipeg. That's why I'm late."

Vic's forehead wrinkled. "Did you come here directly from the airport?"

"God, no. I stopped at home first to shower and change." Li Ann frowned. "Do I _look_ like I came directly from a five-and-a-half hour flight?"

"No, you look great," Vic quickly assured her. "I mean, you always look great. Er."

"Stop hitting on my girlfriend, Vic," Mac called absently from the floor.

"I am definitely not hitting on you," Vic said, looking a little flustered.

"I know." Li Ann smiled. "And you're looking great too, by the way." He really was—he was looking sleek and relaxed in a way that she didn't think she'd ever seen before. Civilian life agreed with him, apparently. "Have you gained weight?" she asked.

"A little," Vic said, sheepishly. "Huang's a great cook." 

Li Ann patted Vic's arm. "I meant it as a compliment," she assured him. "You look comfortable. Healthy." She leaned closer so that she could whisper in Vic's ear. "Has Mac _lost_ weight?"

Vic frowned. "You think so too?" he asked, under his breath. "I thought maybe it was just my imagination..."

Li Ann shrugged. She wasn't sure either. Mac looked happy and relaxed too, playing on the floor with Taylor, but there was also something ... _sharper_ about him.

Vic squeezed her hand. "We'll talk later," he promised in a whisper.

* * *

It was strange, sitting down at Huang and Geneviève's dining room table again. The last time Li Ann had been here, everyone had been so nervous and awkward—with good cause, considering what had been on the line. Now Mac and Vic were chatting comfortably with the Bouchard-Wongs, and Mac was the one cutting up pieces of meat pie for Taylor's plate.

"Pickled beets?" Huang asked, offering Li Ann a serving dish.

"Ah, sure," Li Ann said, and scooped a portion onto her plate.

"Wine?" Geneviève offered.

"Yes, please." Li Ann smiled at her.

The meal was delicious. As for the conversation, Li Ann largely let it roll over her. Geneviève and Huang both seemed aware that they shouldn't ask Li Ann about her trip. Mostly, Geneviève talked about her Quebecois family Christmas traditions, and Vic chimed in with his own childhood stories. The two of them were the only ones at the table who had grown up celebrating Christmas. Li Ann noticed that Vic portrayed his parents in more favourable terms than usual in the anecdotes he was relating. But when Geneviève asked if he had any plans to see his parents over the holidays, he responded with a curt 'Nope.'

"What about Alice?" Li Ann asked. "Have you heard from her?"

"Allegra," Vic corrected her with a little eye-roll. "My little sister," he glossed for Geneviève and Huang. "Last I heard, she was digging wells in Bangladesh. But she said she'll probably come home in the spring. Maybe she'll finally finish high school."

After dinner, they all went to the living room. Vic and Geneviève had some back-and-forth banter about whether Christmas Eve or Christmas morning was a more proper time to open presents, but Vic had to concede that Christmas Eve was the better option in this case. Geneviève and Huang would be flying to Montreal with Taylor in the morning, and they were planning to leave for the airport at ten o'clock. Mac and Vic would have a week off while the Bouchard-Wongs visited Geneviève's family in Montreal and Quebec City.

Taylor had about as many presents as everyone else put together. She needed very little encouragement to start ripping the wrapping paper off them. Soon they were all surrounded by piles of crumpled wrapping, like multi-coloured snowdrifts. Li Ann's own present to Taylor, a new, black-haired Cabbage Patch doll with Asian eyes, got a quick, shy 'Tank-you' at Vic's prompting, but didn't really seem to catch her attention. The item Taylor got most excited by was the bubble wrap that had been packed around a decorative plate that Huang gave to Geneviève. As soon as Vic showed Taylor how to pop the plastic bubbles, she was entranced. So was Mac, for that matter. "How did I not know that this was a thing?" he asked, delighted, reaching over to pop a bubble himself.

It was well past Taylor's usual eight o'clock bedtime when the presents were all opened, and her shrieks of enthusiasm were starting to edge over into crankiness. "It's definitely time for your bath," Mac declared, picking her up. "Good-night kisses for Mama and Bàba?"

"Don't worry about the clean-up down here," Huang said. "I'll take care of it."

Li Ann, feeling a little unsure of herself, trailed Mac and Vic upstairs. She doubted that she had a place in Taylor's bedtime routine anymore—but she didn't really feel up for staying downstairs with Geneviève and Huang by herself, either.

"Hey Taytay," Mac said in the upstairs hallway, "How about Yeena gives you your bath tonight?"

"No," Taylor said firmly. "Want _you_."

"You'd better do it," Vic said. "She's way overtired and overexcited. She'll probably tantrum if you try to hand her over."

Mac gave a sort of worried look in Li Ann's direction. "But Li Ann hasn't seen her in six weeks. And she's not going to see her all next week, either."

Li Ann shrugged, and tried for a reassuring smile. "It's okay. She'll be back after New Year's, and I'll see her then. I don't think the Director's going to send me away on any more big trips any time soon. She's made her point."

So Li Ann and Vic left Mac to give Taylor her bath, and they headed into the nanny suite to wait for him.

"Oh, you turned the outer room into the bedroom," Li Ann remarked in surprise as they crossed the threshold.

Vic nodded. "It made more sense. We're supposed to be guarding Taylor, right? This way nobody gets into her room at night without going through us."

Li Ann gazed around. With the transplanted furniture and bedding, the place reminded her very much of Vic's old bedroom. "It's homey," she conceded. "Don't Geneviève and Huang go into Taylor's room, though?"

"Well, sure," Vic said.

Li Ann frowned. "Don't you find it a bit intrusive? Having them going through your bedroom?"

"It's okay," Vic said. "They knock first." He beckoned her inwards, into what had been the previous nanny's bedroom the last time Li Ann saw this place. Now Vic's bookshelves lined the walls, and his old couch and armchair were arranged around what looked like a new TV. "You kept the HOT! poster," Li Ann remarked with a raised eyebrow. 

Vic shrugged, and looked a little sheepish. "I've had it since I graduated from the police academy. It wouldn't feel like home without it."

"I don't see much sign of Mac," Li Ann mentioned. It was an observation, not a criticism, but it occurred to her slightly belatedly that it might be construed as such.

Vic didn't seem bothered, though; he snorted a laugh. "You would if you looked in the closet. Pretty much the whole thing is his."

Li Ann sank into the armchair. "So. You two seem pretty settled-in and content."

"Yeah." Vic's lips quirked in a slightly embarrassed smile. "Happily-ever-after, man. Who would've thought we'd ever get there?" He settled on the couch, leaning back and crossing his legs.

"And it's not uncomfortable, living in another couple's house?"

"Nah, Geneviève and Huang are pretty easy to get along with. They're usually only home for a few hours in the evening, anyway. And it's not like we're cooped up in these two rooms all day—we've got the run of the place. Plus, Taylor's got activities we've got to take her to nearly every day. They've got her in swimming classes, art classes, ballet classes, Chinese-language classes, French-language classes ... can you believe, they've got her enrolled in toddler _yoga_." Vic rolled his eyes. 

"That's a lot more than we were managing in Key River," Li Ann noted.

"Well, they have money. We didn't. Anyway, mostly it's just a bunch of different places for her to run around in circles. I mean, seriously, she's two and a half."

"And what about the bodyguard side of things? Any sign of trouble?"

Vic shook his head. "Nothing. The Director met with Geneviève and Huang in early December, apparently, to let them know that the whole situation with the Chinese was completely resolved. That's why they didn't feel like they needed us to come to Quebec with them."

"That's great," Li Ann said, with real relief. This wasn't something they'd been able to talk about on the phone, considering the national security concerns. "So ... post-Agency life is pretty good, then?"

"Yeah," Vic said, and then with a slight, nervous hesitation, he added: "Mostly."

"Mostly?" Li Ann repeated, with a little trepidation.

"Ah, when you first saw Mac tonight, you thought he'd lost some weight."

"Right," Li Ann agreed. It had just been a quick first impression, upon seeing him for the first time in six weeks. She frowned. "He hasn't been sick again, has he? You would have told me on the phone." She reinforced that last sentence with a bit of a precautionary glare at Vic—she knew that Mac wouldn't have wanted to tell her if anything was wrong, but Vic should be a reliable source.

"Well, he hasn't exactly been sick..." Vic rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tic she knew well. "But he's had some ... off days."

Li Ann frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Well, there have been some days when he hasn't exactly eaten anything. Or gotten out of bed."

"For the entire day?" Li Ann felt a twinge of alarm.

Vic nodded. "When the alarm goes off in the morning, he says he's going to get up in a few minutes, and then he doesn't. He just lies there, staring at the wall." Vic rubbed the back of his neck again, looking troubled. "When I ask him what's wrong, he says nothing's wrong, or he's just tired. He doesn't want to eat—I can get him to drink some tea, sometimes, if he'll sit up."

"Oh my god," Li Ann said. "Is the lung damage getting worse? Have you made him see a doctor?" She felt her own chest tightening, which was definitely psychosomatic—she was very careful with her medications, and she hadn't had any problems at all since she'd recovered from the bout of pneumonia in October.

But Vic was shaking his head. "It's not his lungs. Li Ann, I think he's clinically depressed."

"What?" Li Ann frowned. "That doesn't make sense. He seemed really happy tonight. And anyway, you just got finished telling me how good your life is now."

"I know," Vic said. "I don't know why it's happening now. But I've read the PTSD book again, and I'm pretty sure that's what it is. It started around the beginning of December, and it's been getting worse all month."

"I'm really having trouble reconciling what you're telling me with how he seemed tonight," Li Ann said. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's just ... maybe you're exaggerating, a bit?" Vic had always been a worrier.

"I'm not," Vic said. "But I've been hoping he'll get through it on his own, since he doesn't want to talk about it or admit that anything's wrong. Didn't you tell me once that he used to have days like this back in Hong Kong?"

"Hm?" Li Ann thought for a moment. "Sort of. He'd retreat into his room sometimes, and I had to cajole him to eat. But I think that usually had to do with things happening between him and Michael. Not that I had any idea what was really going on at the time." She bit her lip, recalling a frequent aspect of those long-gone days. "He hasn't been drinking again, has he?"

Vic shook his head.

"He had wine at dinner," Li Ann pointed out.

"Sure, but he hasn't been getting _drunk_. He hasn't been using alcohol to escape. He's just—shutting down." Vic sighed, and rolled his shoulders. "Honestly, I've been hoping that you coming back will make it better. He didn't let on when you guys talked on the phone, but he was really upset about the Director sending you away."

"I wasn't very happy about that, either," Li Ann noted. And then she considered for a moment what it meant that Vic was pinning his hopes on her. "Look, if this thing with Mac is anything like those days he used to have in Hong Kong, I think you might just need to be a bit harder on him. Michael would never have let him spend the whole day in bed. Neither would the Director, for that matter. So here he is, for the first time in his life, with nobody ready to kick his ass for slacking off. I mean, you've obviously been very gentle with him. He's got a job to do here, but the days that he spends in bed, _you_ do all the work, right? You look after Taylor, you take her to her classes, you do the cooking?"

"Well, sometimes Huang cooks dinner," Vic said. "If he gets home on time."

Li Ann frowned. "What do Geneviève and Huang say about all this? Do they know?"

"Ah, I haven't told them everything. I just tell them Mac's not feeling well. They knew from the beginning that he wouldn't be up for looking after Taylor every day."

"So you're making excuses for him."

Vic rubbed his forehead. "Maybe? Shit, I don't really know what I'm doing here, Li Ann. But I'm definitely _not_ going to fix this by being more like Michael. He _fucked_ Mac _up_ , you know that as well as I do. And the Director's not a great model, either. Maybe I'm going a little too easy on him, but—fuck, maybe he just needs time to adjust. You said it yourself, this is the first time in his life that there's been nobody waiting to fuck him up if he slacks off. Jesus, this might be the first sustained period in his life when he's been able to let his _guard_ down."

"Things were pretty quiet at the safe house," Li Ann pointed out. "And he did just fine there."

"Yeah, well, we expected Chinese commandos to come breaking through the windows at any moment, didn't we?"

"True. ... Wait." Li Ann sat up straighter, glimpsing a possible connection. "Didn't you say that the Director gave you the all-clear at the start of December? And that was when Mac started having these episodes?"

"Oh my god." Vic palmed his forehead. "You're right. You're probably right. He's falling apart because he feels _safe_."

"It wouldn't be the first time," Li Ann pointed out. "Remember when you first started dating?"

"After he got shot," Vic recalled. "That was a rough week."

"This doesn't actually sound as bad as that was," Li Ann said. "So ... maybe we really do just need to give him some time." She glanced at her watch. "Speaking of giving him time ... shouldn't he have finished putting Taylor to bed by now?"

"I heard him bringing her into her bedroom a while ago," Vic said. "He's probably fallen asleep with her. I'll go get him."

* * *

Mac followed Vic back into the sitting room a minute later, looking rumpled and groggy.

"Hi again," Li Ann said, going to him and stealing a kiss. He returned it, warmly. Then she pulled away just far enough to look him over, touching his face. He _had_ lost weight, she was sure of it. Being gentle with him while he adjusted to post-Agency life was one thing, but Vic shouldn't be letting him refuse to _eat_. "You look sleepy. Do you want to go straight to bed?"

Mac shook his head, and grinned. "Not before we give you your present."

Li Ann narrowed her eyes. "I thought we already opened them all?"

"We got you a present that we didn't want to give to you in front of Geneviève and Huang and Taylor," Vic explained. He opened up the wooden cabinet under the TV, and pulled out a small package in red-and-green candy-cane paper. "Here, it's from both of us."

"Okay." Li Ann took it, bemused, and ripped the paper off.

"We kept the receipt, so we can return it if you don't want it," Vic added, sounding a little anxious.

"She's not gonna return it," Mac said, patting Vic's shoulder and tugging him down onto the couch.

"What _is_ it?" Li Ann asked, turning the item over and peering at it. Whatever it was, it came in a clear plastic blister pack. The product name, 'The Good Egg,' gave her no clue. It was a silver ovoid device that would easily fit in the palm of her hand, connected by a cord to what looked like a battery pack. Given the cheerful pink-and-purple commercial packaging, it probably wasn't any kind of bomb.

"It's a vibrator," Mac said. "You know, for sex?"

"Ah." Li Ann stared down at the package, feeling awkward. "Uh, guys? You know I don't have sex anymore."

"Yeah, but we thought you might like to masturbate," Mac said. "You told me once that you liked having orgasms."

"I did?" Li Ann asked, faintly. "I don't remember telling you that."

"Well, you did," Mac said confidently.

"I don't, ah, actually masturbate," Li Ann added.

"Yeah, I remember," Mac said. "But that's why we thought you might like the vibrator. Because they work _so much better_ than just your fingers."

Vic looked slightly embarrassed. "At least, that's what the lady at the sex shop said."

"Okay." Li Ann frowned down at the package for a moment longer, and then shrugged and smiled. "Well, thanks. It's very sweet of you both, to think of it. Maybe I'll give it a try." She caught Mac's hopeful look. "At _home_ ," she added. "Later."

"Wait, you're not going home tonight, are you?" Mac asked.

"No, I was planning to stay here," she said. "If that's okay?"

"Yes, of course!" Mac said.

* * *

They decided to snuggle on Vic's couch ( _Mac_ and Vic's couch now, Li Ann corrected herself silently) and watch something Christmassy. Vic went downstairs to the kitchen to make popcorn, and Mac and Li Ann flipped through the TV guide and picked a movie called _One Magic Christmas_ , which was starting at nine.

Li Ann paid careful attention to Mac, looking for any sign of the depression Vic had described, but he seemed totally normal. She wondered again if maybe Vic's concerns were exaggerated.

Vic came back upstairs with popcorn and a tray of mugs of hot cocoa just as the show was starting. Then Mac started trying to throw popcorn into Li Ann's mouth, and she obviously had to reciprocate and demonstrate her greater accuracy, so they honestly didn't pay a lot of attention to the start of the movie. Eventually they settled down, munching popcorn and sipping cocoa. Mac had snagged the middle spot on the couch, and he was holding hands with Vic but leaning against Li Ann. It was comfy.

The movie, meanwhile, was growing increasingly dark. It had started out reasonably fluffy, with Christmas trees and letters to Santa, and Li Ann had been vaguely following and taking note of the Christmas-related tropes in case Vic quizzed her later. But then the mom lost her job right before seeing the dad get shot and killed in a bank robbery. When the fleeing robber drove into the icy river with the two kids still in the back of the stolen car, Mac shifted uncomfortably and asked, sounding a little strained, "Hey, uh, is this supposed to be _festive_?"

"It gets better!" Vic assured them. "This is the low point. The angel Gideon's going to magic the kids out of the river, and then they're going to go to the North Pole and convince Santa to turn back time so that the mom can prevent the shooting by being kind to the guy who was going to rob the bank."

"You've seen it before, I take it?" Li Ann murmured.

"It plays every year. It's kind of Canada's answer to _It's a Wonderful Life_ ," Vic said.

"What's a wonderful life?" Li Ann asked. Mac looked similarly confused.

"Really?" Vic wrinkled his nose at both of them. "Oh well. Maybe next year. Uh, do you want to keep watching?"

"Not really," Mac said, faintly. The bereaved mother was sobbing in the bathroom of her empty house.

"Okay." Vic fumbled for the remote and turned the TV off. "Maybe that wasn't a winner."

"Thank God," Mac murmured under his breath, in Cantonese.

Li Ann patted his knee. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly, in the same language.

Vic gave them a sharp look. "Guys, please don't do that."

"Sorry," Li Ann said, going back to English. "I just—"

"I'm okay," Mac said simultaneously, also in English. "Really. Just ... that movie should've come with some kind of warning, don't you think?"

Vic scratched his head. "It's a movie for _kids_. We watch violent martial arts flicks all the time."

"Sure," Mac said. "Whatever."

"I'm missing something, aren't I." Vic looked from Mac to Li Ann and back again.

Li Ann looked at Mac, too. "The anniversary," she said, because the movie had just made her realize that there was something else about the start of December that might have been hard for Mac to deal with. "Has it been on your mind?"

His expression did a brief flicker of _I-don't-want-to-talk-about-this_. But then he drew a slightly shaky breath, nodded, and took her hand with his free one. "Ever since the Christmas lights went up around town," he said.

"Anniversary," Vic repeated, belatedly, like he was just catching on. " _Shit_. It's a year since Michael tried to kill you."

"That too," Mac said.

Vic frowned. "Too?"

"Our father was killed," Li Ann reminded him.

"Ah," Vic said, a little vaguely. Li Ann squeezed Mac's hand and waited for Vic to process the reminder. She wasn't offended by the fact that it hadn't been on Vic's mind; she knew that Vic had never really accepted how deeply she and Mac had loved the godfather. Vic had only known them when the relationship was in pieces, when the godfather had a price on their heads.

Vic, meanwhile, glanced back towards the dark TV, and finally made the connection. "Oh, Jeez. So we watch a movie where the father gets shot and bleeds out in his wife's arms on the ground. I am so sorry. I didn't even think—"

"Forget it," Mac said, a bit harshly. He let go of Li Ann's hand, and Vic's, and leaned over to pluck his half-empty hot chocolate from the floor in front of the couch. He took a drink, and grimaced. "This could use a lot more kick. I bet Geneviève and Huang will spot us a bottle of rum if we ask nicely."

Vic frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Well, I think it is," Li Ann countered. Vic had said, himself, that Mac wasn't having any problems with alcohol at the moment—and after that movie, Li Ann _really_ wanted a drink. "Two against one," she added, in case Vic had forgotten to count. Mac shot her a grateful look.

Vic continued to evince reluctance, but with a little more prodding Li Ann managed to convince him to go downstairs and make them each a fresh mug of hot chocolate with one shot of rum.

"That's amazing, how you can get him to do things," Mac commented lightly when Vic had left. "When he's with me, he's _such_ a dom."

Li Ann snorted delicately. "That's because you're such a sub."

Mac quirked a grin. "Listen to you, using the lingo."

Li Ann felt herself blushing in automatic reaction. She was too comfortable with Mac to be really embarrassed, though. "The fruits of all those coffee dates with Ben," she said. "Hey, have you been in touch with him since we got back from Key River?"

Mac shook his head. "Too much going on here," he said. "Anyway, I'd have to tell him about Taylor, and that didn't seem like a conversation to have without you."

"Hm," Li Ann said. "We should call him up soon, then. Maybe tomorrow? From his point of view, we went dark six months ago. He probably thinks we're _dead_."

"Well, don't expect him to throw us a party to celebrate our resurrection. People can be surprisingly blasé about that kind of thing," Mac muttered into his mostly-empty mug.

"When Michael came back, we weren't _blasé_ about it," Li Ann argued—but then, seeing his wince, realized her mistake. "I wasn't blasé about you coming back, either," she said more quietly. "It was complicated. I'm sorry."

"I know," he said quickly, meeting her eyes. "I don't know why I just brought that up. I'm _over_ it, it's water under the bridge."

Li Ann touched his cheek, and then leaned in to kiss him gently, briefly, on the lips. "It's okay that you're not over it," she said. "I did not handle that well. I was numb, and confused about what I was doing with Vic, and I made you feel like I wasn't entirely happy that you weren't dead."

"No you didn't," he said, but she shook her head.

"I did," she insisted quietly. "And I am so sorry." She kissed him again, more deeply this time. "I love you," she added. "And I am _so_ glad that you're alive."

* * *

Vic returned with the adulterated cocoa, and for the next hour or so they all lounged on the couch and chatted comfortably. The shot of rum gave Li Ann just enough of a warm buzz to soften the edges of the bad memories the movie had brought up.

Mostly Mac and Vic told Li Ann all about what they'd been doing with Taylor for the past month, and about the gloriously mundane details of life in the Bouchard-Wong household. It all sounded very comfortable and domestic; Li Ann could see why Vic had referred to it as their happily-ever-after. Nothing was said about Mac's 'off' days, and Li Ann didn't bring the topic up.

It wasn't until Vic yawned and said, "Look, I'm getting up with Taylor at six in the morning; we'd better go to bed," that Li Ann brought up the question of their sleeping arrangements.

"I was wondering if I could have Mac to myself, just for the night?" she asked. "Since we haven't seen each other in six weeks." There was a guest room across the hall dedicated to her use, at least hypothetically; she still hadn't slept in it yet.

"It's okay with me, if you want to," Vic said to Mac.

"You'll be okay if Taylor wakes up?" Mac asked.

Vic shrugged. "Sure."

* * *

Snuggling under the blankets next to Mac, Li Ann enjoyed the smell and the feel of his bare skin. It made her feel comfortable and relaxed in a way that she hadn't even realized how much she'd missed.

They kissed, in a languid way, for a while. When she'd had enough, Li Ann tucked her head in against Mac's shoulder and splayed her hand across his fuzzy chest. "Mm," she said. "It's good to be back."

"I'm really glad you're here," he said.

"Do you want to get yourself off?" she asked. Sometimes he did, after they made out.

"Nah," he said. "Do you? With the vibrator?"

She almost said no, but then she realized that she _was_ curious. She hadn't had an orgasm since she and Mac had run from the Tangs. She'd never had one with Vic; in retrospect, the fact that she'd never even felt motivated to explain to Vic what he could do differently to make her come had probably been a red flag. "Are there batteries?" she asked.

"Of course," he said. "We put some in your bedside table, just in case."

Li Ann laughed. "How much thought did you put into this?"

"It was kind of just a whim," Mac said. "But I really thought you might like it."

So she retrieved the vibrator package from her overnight bag, opened it up, and slipped the batteries inside. She flipped the switch, and the egg part started buzzing merrily. She turned it off again, quickly.

"Do you want me to leave?" Mac asked.

Li Ann thought about that. She realized that she was actually feeling weirdly nervous—and the idea of Mac staying by her side was reassuring. "No," she said. "Could you just ... lie next to me?"

"Okay," he said.

Li Ann climbed back into the bed. She hadn't removed her underwear, although she was otherwise naked. Now she slipped the little egg in under the front elastic of her boyshorts, and took a breath. Mac lay down alongside her, facing her, and touched gentle fingers to her cheek. "Is this okay?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "But don't touch me anywhere else."

"Okay," he said again.

She flipped the switch.

And gasped.

"Oh my god," she said, and nearly turned it off again.

The sensation was intense, and it seemed to fill her whole body. She gripped the egg a little more carefully, and pressed it gently against herself.

This was better than the rum-laced cocoa. Her thoughts and worries seemed to drift apart and away from her like gauzy tissue, and her whole body was tense in a weirdly delicious way, centred on a bright spot just under her belly.

She trembled, barely aware, just lost in _feeling_.

And then she felt a tightening inside of herself that she remembered from a long time ago. She gasped again, and arched her back.

And then it was over. She turned off the vibrator. Mac's thumb was brushing her cheekbone. "So it worked," he said.

Li Ann swallowed, and took a moment to remember how language worked. "Yes," she said.

"Was it sexy?" he asked.

Li Ann blinked slowly. "I'm really not even sure what that _means_ ," she confessed. "But it felt good. I feel very relaxed now." She rolled her head sideways. " _Now_ do you want to get yourself off?"

He gave a little shrug of negation. "You're pretty hot," he said. "But I don't need to."

"Vic probably isn't asleep yet," Li Ann pointed out. "If you want to go back and have a moment with him." She rolled over so that she could toss the vibrator at the open top of her overnight bag. When she turned back to Mac, she noticed that he was looking a little anxious.

"Vic and I haven't, ah, actually, been having very much sex lately."

Li Ann frowned, and lay back down beside him. He was still on his side facing her, so she lay a little apart, so that she could focus properly on his face. Her fingers sought his, and found them. "Are you guys okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, um, I just haven't really felt like it."

As somebody who'd never really felt like having sex in her _life_ , Li Ann didn't find anything inherently wrong with that sentiment. But intellectually, she understood that Mac usually did have a lot of enthusiasm for sex, and loved sharing it with Vic. She remembered, again, Vic's contention that Mac was depressed. Vic hadn't said anything about their sex life falling off, but then Vic did tend to be a bit reticent about discussing sex with her. "Mac, are _you_ okay?" she decided to ask.

Instead of answering directly, he pulled away from her and sat up on the bed, tucking his knees up to his chin. "If I tell you something fucked up, do you promise not to tell Vic?" he said, without looking at her.

Li Ann thought about that one for a moment, as she eased herself up to kneel beside him. Outside of the blankets, the air was chilly. Mac already had goosebumps along his arms. So Li Ann pulled at the bed's duvet, gathering it up so that she could wrap it around both of their shoulders. Then she said: "If you tell me something fucked up, I probably _will_ tell Vic."

Mac sighed. And then, as she'd expected, he told her anyway. "I miss Michael."

"Oh, Mac." She hugged an arm around him, under the duvet. "Okay. I don't have to tell Vic that."

Mac nodded. "He'd probably take it the wrong way." He leaned against her, ducking his head down against her shoulder. "Michael was awful. But I _miss_ him. I miss _fighting_ with him. I felt so alive when we fought."

"I understand," Li Ann said. "It's okay to miss him. I do too, sometimes."

"He tried to kill us," Mac pointed out, and sniffled. "A lot."

"I don't regret that I killed him," Li Ann said. "I had to do it. That doesn't mean I can't feel sad sometimes, remembering him."

"I've been dreaming about him a lot lately." He sniffled again. "Li Ann, do you think it could have ended differently? If I'd found a way to trust him sooner?"

"Ah, he could have _killed_ you sooner," Li Ann said.

Mac had started rubbing his fingers up and down along Li Ann's forearm; it felt more like an anxious fidget than a caress. "Maybe it didn't have to go that way," he said. "By the time we were standing in an abandoned factory full of explosives—yeah, it was definitely too late. But what if I'd taken his hand when Father died? Father's _last words_ —family, forgiveness. I didn't even try. Maybe if I had..."

"Mac, _no_. It is _not your fault_ that it ended like it did." She hugged him tighter. "It's okay to miss him. He was our brother. But he was also kind of a monster."

"He hurt me sometimes," Mac said. "But he cared about me, too. Vic always oversimplifies it, he says Michael abused me, but I think Michael just didn't know how to separate love and violence. He needed to own me, but that was because he _needed_ me. If I'd gone to him, after Father died ... I think he might have taken me back. And I could have saved him from what came next."

"Okay, first of all, the Director would never have let you do that. Go back to the Tangs? Even _if_ they were in the process of transitioning away from their criminal holdings, it's not like they were disbanding them, they were just _selling_ them. She couldn't ally the Agency with that."

"You can't know what the Director would have allowed. _She_ worked with Michael."

"She thought she could use him for her own ends, and she was wrong," Li Ann said. "She miscalculated, because even _she_ didn't understand. She thought she could depend on him as a criminal, that he'd act rationally for his own gain. But there was a terrible darkness in him that she didn't see, and that's what drove him to try to kill you."

"I betrayed him," Mac murmured. "He was hurt."

Li Ann hunched her shoulders, and took a breath. "No. It was more than that. I never told you why I agreed to run from the Tangs."

"Huh?" Mac pulled away enough to look at her quizzically. "I told you about the gun-running. And Michael was going to force you to marry him."

"And I told you that I _wouldn't_ leave the Tangs," she reminded him. "Because I owed the godfather everything."

"But then you went away and thought about it for a while, and you changed your mind."

"I didn't just change my mind," Li Ann said. "Something else happened."

Mac frowned, looking suddenly worried. "Fuck, Li Ann, did Michael do something to you?"

"Not to me," she said quickly. "But he did do something, yes. We had dinner that night with Mr. Fong, from the Port Authority. You remember—we'd uncovered information that he was diverting funds?"

Mac shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"The files we stole from the Trade Association."

"Oh my god," he said, his eyes lighting up with the memory. "That was the last heist we ever pulled. We were _great_ that night."

"So we had dinner with Mr. Fong," Li Ann said, pressing on grimly, "and then Michael killed him."

"What? Why?"

"Because he _wanted_ to. It didn't make sense, it didn't give the Tangs any advantage." Li Ann shook her head. "It was a car bomb. Michael must have set it up ahead of time, and then sat through the whole dinner, _knowing_ —" She swallowed, hard. "His face. Michael's. When the bomb went off. He looked so _happy_." She squeezed Mac's hand. "That's why I left. And that's why you never could have saved him by going back to him. That's who he was. He would have destroyed you, and me, and everyone else he could touch, until he finally destroyed himself."

"Shit," Mac said faintly. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Li Ann shook her head. "I don't know. I was too upset to tell you that night. And then later—I just didn't think about it. I didn't know how to. Frankly, at times I doubted my own memory. Especially when he came back last year, and was trying so hard to convince us that he'd changed." She sighed, and leaned her forehead against his temple. "You didn't tell _me_ , either," she pointed out softly. "About what he used to do to you. If I'd known that—I wouldn't have let him get anywhere near you."

He took a shaky breath and didn't say anything. She could feel that he'd started shivering.

"The point," she said, "is that you can't blame yourself for how he died. At all. That was _completely_ on him."

* * *

"Vic?" Li Ann whispered in the darkness, keeping well clear of the bed. "Wake up, I think I need you."

A flurry of motion, and Vic was on his feet with his fists up. That's why Li Ann had stood back; they all reacted to unexpected awakenings like that. 

"It's okay," she said quickly. "No danger. I just need your help calming Mac down."

"What?" Vic lowered his hands, and squinted at her in concern. "What's going on?"

"We had a talk about Michael," Li Ann confessed.

"Jesus," Vic said. " _Why_?"

"It doesn't matter. Some things came up. I told him about something that happened a long time ago. I thought it would help him to hear it, but he's been shaking for nearly an hour and he won't talk. I'm sorry."

Vic took a step closer to her, looking worried. "Li Ann ... did Michael hurt you?"

"What? No. But he hurt somebody else. Well, he murdered somebody. Mac didn't know about it."

"Somebody you knew?" Vic asked.

Li Ann shook her head. "Just a man with a very tenuous connection to the Tangs. The joy Michael took in killing him is what's important. I thought Mac needed to know. He was feeling guilty, Vic. About Michael's death. I don't know if that's why he's been having trouble lately, but he brought it up tonight."

"Oh my god," Vic said, in a sort of harried way. " _Michael._ Fuck. Okay. I'll go see Mac." He grabbed the baby monitor from his bedside table before he left the room.

Li Ann followed him across the hall. Mac was where she'd left him, curled up in a ball on the bed. She'd left the duvet tucked around him.

"Mac, I'm here," Vic said softly, getting onto the bed next to Mac. Mac didn't react, and he didn't resist Vic lifting his head up so that it was cradled on Vic's lap.

"Do you want me to go?" Li Ann asked. "I could go back over to your room. Or home."

"No, stay," Vic said.

So she sat on Mac's other side, and ran her fingers gently through his hair.

Almost immediately, Mac let out a choking, nearly-stifled sob. And then he was crying, with Vic hugging and rocking him and Li Ann stroking his head.

She was relieved to hear him cry, actually. It meant she'd done the right thing, going and getting Vic.

Eventually Mac's sobs quieted, and finally he managed a sniffly, subdued, "Fuck, I'm so sorry."

Li Ann felt an easing of tension throughout her body, as though she were the one herself who'd had a good cry and washed away a little of the darkness. "Don't apologize," she said. "I'm just glad you're okay."

* * *

Mac was not okay. She knew that. None of them were, not really, after what they'd each lived through, but Mac was especially fragile.

But at least he was as safe as he could possibly be, tucked back into his own bed between herself and Vic.

Snuggled up against Mac's back, pressing light reassuring kisses against the nape of his neck as they all tried to relax into sleep, Li Ann wondered if it had been the wrong move, telling Mac that story about Michael. He certainly hadn't taken it well. But after thinking about it for a bit, she decided it hadn't been a mistake. Mac was better off knowing the whole truth about Michael; hopefully, it would stop him from tearing himself up with guilt over not somehow saving him.

And now Li Ann didn't have to carry that memory alone.

Li Ann closed her eyes, and saw Michael's beaming smile in the restaurant. The flames behind him. She shuddered, took a deep breath laden with the familiar, comforting scent of Mac's skin, and pushed the image away.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hello?"

"Hi, Ben. It's Li Ann."

"Oh. My. God. It's a fucking miracle, and I don't even celebrate Christmas! Where the hell have you been? I thought—I can't say on the phone what I thought."

Li Ann smiled. She was sitting curled up on the Bouchard-Wongs' comfortable leather couch. Through their big, nearly floor-to-ceiling living room window, she could see the sun sparkling on the snow clinging to the bushes in the front garden. Mac was still sleeping, and Vic was off driving Geneviève, Huang and Taylor to the airport. "We were away for a while, but we're back in Toronto now. There have been some big changes in our lives. I was wondering if you'd like to get together in person and catch up?"

"How about right now?" Ben suggested. "I don't have any plans until later. Casey's brother and I do _not_ get along, so I plead 'Jewish' to get out of their Christmas morning festivities."

"Oh," Li Ann said, taken a little by surprise at Ben's enthusiasm. "Well, I guess I don't have any plans either. Is anything open, though?"

"The Starbucks at Yonge and Wellesley is."

Li Ann did some quick mental calculations. Mac would have to wake up, and shower... "We could meet you there in an hour?"

* * *

It was more like an hour and a half. It was hard to roust Mac out of bed, and then he took a loooong time in the shower. Luckily, Ben had his cell phone on him, so Li Ann made a couple of apologetic calls with adjusted ETAs.

They finally got there at about eleven-thirty.

Ben had claimed a table and was waiting for them, a half-empty mug of coffee in front of him. He hopped to his feet to give them both big, enthusiastic hugs. "I'd nearly given up hope of ever seeing you again," he said. "What the hell have you been up to?"

"It's a pretty long story," Li Ann said. "We should get drinks before we start."

She got tea, and Mac got hot chocolate. Then they settled in, leaning elbows on the table so that they could talk fairly intimately in low voices.

"We were undercover," Li Ann started, since that was the most succinct answer to Ben's original question.

Ben nodded. "I ... well, I _hoped_ it was something like that. Since the other alternative that occurred to me was—" He didn't finish the sentence, but flicked his finger quickly across his throat. "When you'd been missing for a while, I asked David to ask your Director what was going on, but she wasn't returning his calls, either."

"I'm sorry we couldn't leave you any kind of message," Li Ann said. Ben was their only real friend outside of the Agency. Li Ann felt bad about the fact that he'd been left in the dark—but, to be honest, it was sort of nice to know that somebody outside _had_ noticed that they were gone, and had worried about them. "It all happened very quickly."

"Can you tell me where you were?" he asked. "Now that it's over?"

"Outside of Sudbury," Li Ann said.

Ben raised his eyebrows. "The middle of nowhere, then. Oy vey, you really needed to disappear, huh?"

"We can't tell you why," Li Ann said—mostly to remind Mac, who had a tendency to overshare. The Director allowed them to be open with Ben about being agents, but specific operational details were off-limits, and the Director's dangerous games with their shadowy Chinese counterparts were _very_ off-limits.

"But we can tell him about Taylor," Mac said quickly. "We _have_ to tell him about Taylor."

"Who's Taylor?" Ben asked.

"Our daughter!" Mac declared, beaming.

Ben put down the coffee mug that he'd been raising to his lips. The timing hadn't been quite right for a spit-take, Li Ann noted gratefully. "Uh, wow," he said. "Congratulations?" His gaze flicked over Li Ann, and she guessed he was looking for signs of a recently-ended pregnancy.

"She's two years old," Li Ann mentioned. "Closer to three, actually."

"Oh, so—" Ben still looked a bit off balance. "You just never mentioned her before."

"I didn't know she _existed_ ," Mac said, like this was an excitingly interesting fact.

Li Ann winced a little. "I gave her up for adoption when she was born. At the time, I was in prison and I thought Mac was dead."

"She's _awesome_ ," Mac added. "She's super sweet, and funny, and amazingly cute. You won't believe how cute she is!"

"I'm sure she is," Ben said, in what Li Ann thought was a very polite 'I never had kids and never wanted to' tone. "Er, do you have any pictures?"

Mac sat back in his chair and looked wide-eyed at Li Ann. "Oh my god. We don't have any pictures of her. Not a single one."

"I'm sure Geneviève and Huang have lots," Li Ann assured him. "They'd probably give you some if you asked."

"We should get a _camera_ ," Mac said. "Fuck, I never even thought of it."

"Who are Geneviève and Huang?" Ben asked.

"Taylor's parents," Mac said.

"Oh, you mean—the couple who adopted her?"

"Her _parents_ ," Mac repeated, with a gentle emphasis. "It's important to keep that straight."

Li Ann reached under the table to squeeze Mac's hand. "At first we didn't think they would continue to let us have contact with her, after the mission ended. But then—"

"They hired me and Vic to be her nannies!" Mac happily interjected.

Once again, Ben abandoned a halfway complete attempt to drink coffee. "They what?"

"Well, nannies-slash-bodyguards," Mac clarified. "But mostly nannies."

"Oh," Ben said, looking a bit perplexed. "Well, that's ... wonderful?" He was clearly reading Mac's facial expressions for his cues; Li Ann suspected that Ben wouldn't typically describe a career change into childcare as 'wonderful.' "Ah, what did your Director have to say about this? I thought that quitting your previous job wasn't really an option."

Mac's smile got a little fainter, but didn't go away. "We didn't quit. We got retired."

"Oh," Ben said, still looking puzzled.

"Mac was injured on the mission," Li Ann clarified. "We both were, but I was moved into ... more of a desk job."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Ben said, sweeping them both with a concerned look. "Are you okay now?"

"No," Li Ann said—simultaneously with Mac's 'yes.'

She frowned at him.

Mac shrugged. "It was the only way to get out of that place alive, wasn't it? I may be a little fucked up, but I'm a lot better off this way."

Ben still looked worried, and confused. Li Ann decided she'd better clarify things, since it didn't look like Mac was going to. And of course they didn't _look_ injured; it's not like they had visible scars, or limps. In fact she particularly noticed that Mac had taken a lot of care with his appearance before they'd left the house to meet Ben; he'd shaved well, gelled his hair, and put on a good suit with a sharp, Chinese-collared navy shirt. "We were in a fire," she explained. "We avoided getting burned, thankfully, but we both ended up with substantial smoke inhalation damage."

"Oh, kids, I am so sorry," Ben said. "That's shitty. Is it—sorry, I'm not quite sure how to ask this. Does it cause you a lot of problems, day-to-day? Is it something you can recover from?"

"Not too many problems, if we're careful," Li Ann said, squeezing Mac's hand under the table again. "But our capacities are reduced. Being a field agent is very strenuous—that's not something we can do anymore. And no, it doesn't look like the damage is going to heal any more than it has."

"Wow." Ben took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. "At the risk of sounding very repetitive—I am so sorry. That's a raw deal. But I'm very glad to see that you survived, and actually I'm quite relieved to learn that you're finally out of the line of fire. I'm not ashamed to say, I did lie awake at night sometimes worrying about you kids."

Mac looked at him sort of quizzically. "Really?"

"Really." Ben sighed, and reached over to cup a hand over Mac's, where Mac was holding his hot chocolate. He didn't reach for Li Ann, but he fixed her in his gaze. "I find it hard to know how to think about you two," he said. "Sometimes it's difficult for me to even conceive of you as fully real. You're like characters out of a summer blockbuster movie. Like you live in a different _genre_ than I do. When I'm thinking of you like that, I don't worry about you. Of _course_ you're off having these wild, dangerous adventures—that's just your version of reality. But then my perspective will shift somehow and I'll be able to remember that you're not superheros, you're a couple of young people caught up in a very scary situation. _That's_ when I break into cold sweats, realizing how imperilled you are."

"Well hey, genre-wise, I guess I've transitioned from action/adventure to sitcom," Mac observed. He said it with a grin, but the way he shifted his shoulders and the fidgety tapping of his fingers against hers under the table suggested to Li Ann that he was feeling as overwhelmed as she was, realizing that Benjamin really cared for them, and worried about them.

"And Vic," Ben said. "Sorry, I'm not sure I entirely followed his part in all this—was he also caught up in the fire?"

"No," Li Ann said. Mac gave her fingers a sharp warning tap under the table, but she didn't need the reminder—obviously it wasn't appropriate to tell Ben the exact circumstances of Vic's retirement. "He was allowed to leave the Agency along with Mac," Li Ann finished, simply.

"He'd been an agent for long enough," Mac added.

* * *

With their biggest news out of the way, they could relax and fill Ben in on a lot of the details of their missing months. They avoided all mention of Chinese commandos, but talked about learning how to change diapers, their struggles with money and the discouraging grind of looking for work in Sudbury.

Then they got Ben to tell them about the past six months of _his_ life. He and Casey were enjoying each others' company, apparently, although they weren't yet talking about any steps like moving in together. They each had their own well-established life.

Ben-as-Jasmine had performed in a couple of shows over the summer. Ben described the way he'd nearly fallen apart when he'd come offstage following his first performance after the Rainbow Room shooting. Li Ann realized that in choosing to tell them about it—going into the physical symptoms of his not-quite-panic-attack, his racing heart and sweaty palms—he was making himself vulnerable in a way that he hadn't ever really, before, and offering them a form of intimacy.

And that was when she found herself confessing to her temporary escape to New York, which she and Mac had left out of their initial description of the summer.

She talked about it for quite a while, in a low voice, clutching her tea mug and trying to pick apart why she'd done it, what she'd been feeling, and what she'd learned about herself in that month away. Mac listened very quietly; Ben a little more actively, prompting her with open-ended questions when she trailed off.

Finally she came to the end—her return to the safe house and her adjustment to the slow process of getting to know her daughter.

"That must have been so hard," Ben said, looking at her with compassion.

And that was when Li Ann burst into tears in the middle of the Starbucks.

Mac held her hands, and Ben went and got her napkins.

After that, Mac decided to lighten the mood by telling Ben about Sonny, their grizzled pot-dealing next-door neighbour. Li Ann blew her nose occasionally and sipped her tea and let Mac have his head with the storytelling, other than kicking his ankle occasionally to remind him to keep his voice down. Listening to him spin his experiences apprenticing in the biker gang into a basically light-hearted funny anecdote, with poor Vic's appalled reaction to each escalation as an intermittent, recurring punch-line, Li Ann understood a little better Ben's earlier comment about sometimes seeing them as action-genre characters rather than real people. Mac was working his magic, and Ben was laughing.

Li Ann did attempt to fend off the climax of the story with a sharp ankle-kick when she realized that Mac was going all the way to the night-time showdown with the Hells Angels, but Mac absorbed her attack with just a momentary wince, and kept on talking.

As she'd suspected, the part about throwing the dead Hells Angels in the back of a pickup truck and burying them in the woods was a bit much for Ben. He sat back, looking appalled rather than amused. "Genre-switch," he said, under his breath, sounding like he was trying to remind himself of something.

"You know what I am," Mac said. Something darker had crept into his tone, without Li Ann noticing.

Ben shook his head. "You keep trying to tell me, Mac. But I'm really not sure that I do."

Mac looked down at the table, then. He'd started fidgeting with his mug. "Yeah, never mind. Neither do I, anymore."

"I need a refill," Li Ann said, looking into her own empty tea mug. "Anybody else?"

"Actually, I think it's time for me to be on my way," Ben said, and stood up.

"Benjamin—" Li Ann said quickly. And then she wasn't sure how to finish the sentence.

But it was enough to make him pause halfway through pushing his chair in. "Shit," he said. "I'm sorry. I just gave the impression that I was fleeing you, didn't I? Ah, maybe I actually am." He frowned. "That's on me. I sometimes forget how dangerous you are. I don't like being reminded. But that's not fair; you never hid it." He looked at them silently for a moment, and then astonished Li Ann by saying: "Actually, would you like to get together again tonight? And Vic too, if he's available? I'm going out for Chinese food and a movie with Mom and Casey. I'm sure they'd love to have you come along. They've both been asking about you, wondering where you disappeared to. It's been ... a bit difficult, actually, hiding from both of them how worried I was about you."

Neither Ben's mom nor Casey knew about the Agency. Which meant, Li Ann realized, that in their presence there couldn't be any anecdotes about killing Hells Angels assassins, or other stories of like ilk.

That might be a boundary that Ben wanted to put up, while he processed their latest adventure.

"We love Chinese food!" Mac was already saying enthusiastically.

"Oh." Ben winced slightly. "Maybe I should have said 'Chinese food', actually." He made air quotes this time. "To be clear—we're talking buffet-style General Tso's chicken, chop suey and egg rolls, with fries on the side."

Mac's smile only faltered for a moment; he rallied with a totally sincere, "Vic will _love_ it!"

"It sounds great," Li Ann agreed. It did; maybe not the food, but certainly the company.

* * *

Even with the awkward moment adequately bridged, Ben mentioned that he did need to get going. They gathered up their things and left the coffee shop together, chatting inconsequentially.

When Li Ann stepped out onto the sidewalk, it felt like the air had decided to bite her face.

" _Shit_ , it got cold while we were sitting in there," Ben remarked, blinking at the sky.

"I don't understand," Li Ann said, giving the gorgeous, clear blue sky a look of betrayal. "It looks so _nice_. Shouldn't the sun be _warm_?"

"Not at this time of year," Ben said. "The clear days are usually the coldest. Environment Canada had a warning about it this morning—something about a high-pressure ridge coming down from the Arctic."

"I _hate_ Canada," Mac muttered, and coughed.

"No you don't, sweetie," Li Ann assured him, patting his arm. "You just hate the winter."

He coughed again, and scowled. "Same thing."

"See you tonight!" Ben waved, and started away.

Li Ann shivered and hunched her shoulders. Her nose felt numb. "Let's go," she said to Mac.

"Uh," he said. "Hang on." It came out more as a wheeze. He hunched over, hands on his thighs.

"Oh no," Li Ann murmured, realizing what was happening. "Mac, your inhaler. Where is it?"

He just shook his head. His eyes had gone wide.

" _Fuck_ ," Li Ann breathed, fighting down a not-very-helpful adrenaline spike. She tore off her gloves and quickly fished in both of the front pockets of Mac's parka, but came up with nothing.

"What's happening?" Ben said in a worried voice, at her shoulder. He must have heard something, and come back.

"Mac's having a—it's basically an asthma attack." There were some technical differences that her specialist had explained to her, but they weren't important—certainly not at the present moment.

"What do you need me to do?" Ben asked. She noticed that he was pulling out his phone.

"Hang on," she said. She'd given up on Mac's pockets, and pulled out her own inhaler instead. "Mac, can you take this?" He didn't respond, so she shook it herself. Since he was hunched over, she had to crouch down to put it into his mouth. "Close your lips, Mac. Count of three. One, two,—" She gave the canister a sharp press. "Now hold it in..."

Ben had his phone open. "Should I call 911?"

Li Ann shook her head. "I don't think we need that. But keep the phone out." Then she brought the inhaler back up to Mac's lips. "Now we're gonna do it again, because my prescription isn't as strong as yours. Ready?"

When she'd given Mac the second dose, she manoeuvred herself under his shoulder and braced herself, gently forcing him upright. "Ben, can you help with this?" she asked. "We need to get him back into the Starbucks."

"Sure," Ben said, quickly moving to Mac's other side.

They hadn't moved far at all from the door, so even though they were nearly carrying Mac and it was pretty awkward, they were quickly back in the steamy warmth of the coffee shop.

The place was fairly empty—noon on Christmas day was apparently not rush time—and the table nearest the door was vacant. Li Ann gestured with her head, and she and Ben got Mac settled on a chair.

"No," she interrupted Mac as he started to hunch over again. "Sit up straight, you'll be able to breathe better, you _know_ this." She planted her hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him into a better position.

"Is there something else I can do to help?" Ben asked, giving Mac a worried look.

"Actually, yes," Li Ann said. "Could you buy a coffee for him? Black, in a to-go cup."

Ben blinked. "Really?"

"Really," Li Ann assured him. "I think it will help." She remembered how Mac had used coffee in the summer to manage his symptoms before he got access to Li Ann's medication. She wasn't sure it would do anything _on top_ of the medication, but she thought that maybe focusing on drinking it would help Mac to calm down. She was pretty sure that half of his problem now was that he was still panicking.

"Coffee it is," Ben said, and hurried to the counter.

Mac's scared eyes were fixed on her. "... _why_..." he managed to say in the middle of a wheeze. _Why is this happening to me?_ she guessed he meant.

"I think it was the cold, dry air out there," Li Ann said, keeping her tone even. Soothing. "That was on the list. You remember the list, right?" A slight shudder, just shy of a nod. "Okay, well it's warm and humid in here, and you've had the medicine, and Ben is bringing you coffee, so I think you're going to be okay. I think you're already wheezing less. Can you feel your airways opening up?" A slightly more definite nod.

Ben came back with the coffee, and Li Ann was relieved to see Mac reach out and take it. His hands were shaking, though, and coffee sloshed over the top of the takeout cup's cover. Li Ann put her hands over Mac's to stabilize them, and helped him raise the cup to his lips.

"Are you _sure_ you don't want me to call an ambulance?" Ben asked.

"I'm pretty sure the worst is over," Li Ann said, and repeated her cold-dry-air theory. Mac, meanwhile, really did seem to be breathing more easily.

Soon, he was able to hold the coffee cup on his own, and to speak. "I'm okay," was the first thing he said.

Li Ann rolled her eyes. "As Vic would say if he were here—just tell me how many wolves there are. On a scale of one to ten."

Mac looked suitably abashed. "Ah, six, I guess," he said, and took another sip of coffee.

Ben looked confused. He probably didn't know about the wolf metaphor.

"Okay, maybe let's wait until we're down to two or three wolves before you try walking out of here."

Understanding glimmered in Ben's eye. He was a smart man, after all. "Did you two take public transit to get here?" he asked. "Or did you drive?"

"We drove," Li Ann said. "But the car's a couple of blocks away, I couldn't find anything closer."

"I could get my car," he offered, "and bring it right up to the entrance. Then I could drive you to your car."

"Actually, that would be great," Li Ann said.

* * *

By the time Ben pulled up in front of the Starbucks in his Mercedes, Mac had drunk half the cup of coffee and said that he was down to one or two wolves and ready to go. Li Ann still insisted on helping him to his feet.

Mac only had to cross the sidewalk, and then Ben was reaching over to open the door for him, and Li Ann was helping him fold himself into the front passenger seat, and he was okay.

Li Ann quickly let herself into the back. The heat in the car was blasting.

"I drove around the block to warm it up," Ben said. "Sorry, I can't do anything about it being dry."

"It's okay," Mac said. He closed his eyes.

Li Ann looked at him for a moment. He was looking pale, and exhausted. "Actually," she said to Ben, "would you mind very much driving us all the way home? I can come back for my car later."

"Sure," Ben said levelly, doing a shoulder check and pulling out into traffic. "Where do you live?"

"North York," she said, and gave the address. "That's Geneviève and Huang's place. Mac and Vic live there now. I still have my apartment on the waterfront." She fished her inhaler back out of her pocket and leaned forward to offer it to Mac. "Hold onto this. Use it again if your chest starts to feel tight, okay?"

Mac nodded, and then took a dose right away.

"You could have _told_ me that you needed it," Li Ann pointed out, and managed not to append _you idiot_ to the statement. "Where's yours, by the way?"

"Forgot it," he said.

She wanted to yell at him, but decided not to with Ben in the car.

For the rest of the ride to North York, they talked about the weather. Ben talked about his experiences of Toronto's snowstorms and heat waves; Li Ann answered with stories of monsoons and typhoons in Hong Kong. Mac didn't talk very much, but occasionally corrected Li Ann on some detail. She found his pedantic annoying-older-brother mode pretty comforting under the circumstances.

When they were fairly close, Li Ann called Vic on her cell phone. She confirmed that he was home, and briefed him on the situation. So she wasn't surprised to see him coming out the front door of the house as Ben pulled up behind Geneviève's car in the driveway. Vic was at the passenger-side door almost before the Mercedes had stopped moving.

"I've got you," Li Ann heard Vic murmuring. "Let me help you inside."

Leaving Ben idling in the driveway, Li Ann attached herself to Mac's other side and helped usher him quickly into the house.

There was a bench just inside the front door. Vic guided Mac onto it, pushing a pair of Taylor's mittens out of the way.

"I stand by my position," Mac said, watching Vic kneel down to unlace his boots. "Canada _sucks_."

"Mac, _why_ didn't you have your inhaler?" Li Ann snapped.

"We left in a rush. I forgot it."

"We didn't leave in a rush. We were half an hour late meeting Ben because you took _forty-five minutes_ to shower and shave. You could have taken another thirty seconds to pack your _life-saving-medication!_ "

"I usually remind him," Vic said quietly, unlacing Mac's second boot. "When we head out."

"Vic, he's not a fucking _child_!"

"Ah, sorry..." Ben's voice penetrated Li Ann's rage, and she belatedly felt the cold wafting in from the freshly-opened front door. "I was just wondering if Li Ann wanted a ride back to her car?"

"No!" Li Ann shouted. And then winced, realizing that a) of all the people in the vestibule, she definitely wasn't mad at Ben, and b) she'd left her car in two-hour parking. "Sorry. Actually, yes. I would really appreciate that."

Ben ducked back out the door, and Li Ann turned to follow.

"Li Ann, wait!" Mac said.

"What?!" she snapped, rounding back on him.

He held out her inhaler.

"Oh, _fuck_." She snatched it, glared at him, and left.

* * *

Ben let her fume in silence for a few blocks before he remarked, "Sorry, that sounded like a private fight. I didn't mean to hear it."

"He's so fucking _careless_!" Li Ann glared out the window, and refused to acknowledge to herself that the blurriness of the scenery might be due to a buildup of water in her eyes. "How hard is it to remember the _one thing_ that you need to keep you _breathing_!?"

"Ah—not to make excuses for him, I've definitely known Mac long enough to be frustrated by some of his poor choices—but it did seem like his reaction to the cold took you both by surprise. This is the first time this winter it's dipped below minus twenty. Maybe he didn't anticipate needing the inhaler?"

Li Ann swiped her not-tears away with the heel of her hand. "His lung damage is really bad. He needs the inhaler a lot. There's no way he should have forgotten it."

"Oh," Ben said. "I'm sorry to hear that." He glanced sideways at her. "Is it that bad for you, too?"

"Bad enough that I need to be careful," she said. "Not as bad as his, though. Ironically, my lungs weren't as badly damaged because my knee went out during the fight. I spent some time lying on the floor while Mac finished off the last, um, opponent. The smoke wasn't as bad at floor level."

"Oy vey, you didn't mention that you were in a _fight to the death_ inside a burning building." Ben shook his head. "Let me repeat my delighted amazement that you're still alive."

Li Ann shrugged. "We've been in more dangerous situations. That just happened to be the one where our luck ran out."

"Hm," Ben said. And drove silently for a minute, before saying: "Do you think Mac might have forgotten the inhaler because he's upset about needing it?"

Li Ann thought about that one for a moment. "It's possible," she said. "He forgets a lot of things, though. Important things. His phone, his keys, his extra ammo—he has 'poor executive functioning,' apparently. Vic says that yelling at him won't help and we have to help him build up his coping strategies. But I think Vic mostly copes by doing it for him."

"Where did that diagnosis come from?" Ben asked. "Vic, or Reshmi?"

"Patricia," Li Ann said. "The Agency shrink. She diagnosed Mac with ADHD before he stopped talking to her."

"Oh," Ben said, in a slightly drawn out, _now-some-things-make-more-sense_ kind of way.

"I love him," Li Ann said abruptly.

Ben raised an eyebrow. "I never questioned that, my dear."

"I was just complaining about him a lot, so..." She trailed off. After a moment, she started unbuttoning her coat. The car was really warm.

"Okay, take this with a grain of salt," Ben said. "I'm an aging queen and a divorce lawyer, and only barely not single—I don't necessarily have any good advice to give about psychology, or relationships. But it seems to me that Mac is a young man with some very significant gaps in his essential skills for coping with life, and it must be fairly exhausting, trying to save him from himself." He made a face. "Actually, scratch that—I _know_ it's exhausting trying to save him from himself, because I've had to do it a few times. And I'm only a casual acquaintance."

"You're not a casual acquaintance," Li Ann corrected him. "You're our best friend. Other than each other, anyway."

His slightly startled look made her wonder if maybe she shouldn't have said that.

"Oh," he said. "Shit. Okay, yes, that makes sense, now that I think about it. Let me re-calibrate..." He drummed his fingers absently on the steering wheel, looking pensive. "Look, I was going to say—just because Vic willingly takes on that role, as Mac's protector, doesn't mean that you have to, too. You can set boundaries."

Li Ann shook her head. "I don't see how I could do that. What am I going to say, 'Sorry sweetie, I want you to be more self-reliant and deal with the consequences of your choices, so you're going to have to inject the adrenaline into your _own_ heart this time'?"

Ben glanced quickly at her, eyebrows raised, before turning back to the road. "Oh my dear," he said, "I'm a little afraid to ask—I don't suppose that was a _hypothetical_ example?"

Li Ann shook her head.

Ben gave a tiny sigh. "Of course not."

"It happened a few months before we met you," she said. Staring out the window, remembering the panic on Mac's face as he collapsed to the floor of the bar. Her own unearthly calm and the sound of her pulse rushing in her ears as she positioned the tip of the needle over his heart, hoping she was aiming it correctly. "He'd poisoned himself."

"Ah." Ben frowned thoughtfully. "This was a suicide attempt?"

"Hm? Oh, no, it was an accident. He just wanted to know what the poison smelled like, he didn't know the fumes were toxic." Her whole body had tensed up; she tried to relax. "He could have _asked_ the Cleaners first if it was safe to smell. But of course he didn't. So his heart stopped, and I had to re-start it for him."

"Oy gevalt," Ben murmured softly. And then, "The Cleaners—the assassins?"

She nodded.

"So you were hanging out with _assassins_ , and they were showing off their wares, and Mac accidentally poisoned himself because he has poor impulse control and a lack of caution."

"Right."

"And this ... this is an _example_ you brought up, to explain to me why you think it would be hard for you to draw boundaries with Mac. You're presenting it as the sort of thing that you typically have to deal with, and not as an outlier."

Several more examples flashed quickly through Li Ann's mind. "Right," she said.

Ben sighed. "Okay, I've got nothing. No advice to give you. Normal people don't _get_ into situations like that. Certainly not on a regular basis. And you're talking life and death, here. Literally. You want Mac to stay alive—a position I'm in total agreement with, by the way—so I guess you're just going to have to keep saving him, if you can."

Li Ann had started out this conversation furious with Mac for putting himself at risk for no reason yet again, but Ben's summary made her want to defend Mac. It wasn't as though he was a dead weight on her and Vic. "It's not one-sided," she pointed out. "Mac protects us, too, it's just not always as visible."

"Hm," Ben said. "Yes. If you've got Hells Angels assassins coming for you in the night, he's good to have around." There was a sort of bite to his voice when he said that, incongruous with the statement. It took Li Ann a moment to come up with a guess as to the reason.

"That story was a bit much for you."

Ben grimaced briefly. "It was," he confessed. "You've all certainly mentioned the violence of your jobs to me before; I knew you'd killed people. But you never really went into _detail_ about it, so I didn't have to quite so thoroughly confront it. Picturing Mac and Vic out in the woods with a pile of bodies, digging a six-foot trench..." He trailed off, looking disturbed.

"Mac had to save _Vic_ from the Hells Angels," Li Ann said. And stopped. She hadn't really intended to talk about this. She considered her next words carefully. "Mac glossed over that, when he was telling you the story. But Vic did get retired for a reason. He ... can't handle the field anymore. He can't stomach the violence. That night at Sonny's house, Vic took the bikers by surprise and he _should_ have been able to take them down before they could return fire. But he didn't get a single shot off, he just froze. Mac got there a moment later; if he hadn't, Vic would be dead."

"Oh," Ben said. And was quiet for a moment.

Li Ann thought he might ask her _why_ Vic had developed this sudden handicap; she was prepared to be vague and evasive, since she definitely wasn't going to tell him about Vic executing the captured commando on the Director's orders and then developing PTSD about it.

But apparently, Ben didn't think that an aversion to violence was something that needed an explanation. "But you're all out of the field now," he said instead. "Thank God. So that sort of thing ... shouldn't come up anymore?"

"That's certainly the hope," Li Ann said. "I know Mac would still have my back, though, if there was any kind of trouble." She did have occasional uneasy thoughts about Paul loose in the city and with access to Agency records. Mac, for instance, had broken into a computer and found out where she lived within minutes of arriving at the Agency.

"That's the sort of statement a lot of people make to explain their close friendships," Ben observed. "But usually it just means ... 'they'd lend me rent money in a pinch', or 'they'd distract my crazy ex while I got out of the bar'."

"I killed his crazy ex," Li Ann mused.

"Shit," Ben said. "You did. I knew that." He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Okay. Let's dial things down here. You have each other's backs in a firefight, and that's clearly been very important in your lives, although for _me_ it's a phrase that barely even makes sense—I'm just quoting action movies. But today, you're just upset with him for forgetting his inhaler. What would have happened if you hadn't been there to lend him yours?"

"Ah..." She winced, picturing it. "Well, I suppose he would have collapsed on the sidewalk."

"And then somebody would have called an ambulance," Ben said. "And he probably would have been okay in the end. Li Ann, a thing I've noticed about you and Mac is that you always think you're playing for life-or-death stakes, and also that you think you have nowhere to turn for help except for each other and Vic. And I can see that that's _been_ true, for most of your lives. But if Mac and Vic are really retired, and you're out of the field, maybe you actually can start living more like normal people?"

"I'm really not sure that Mac and I know how to do that," Li Ann said quietly, looking down at her calloused hands.

"Well, if you're still up for dinner and a movie after Mac's had a chance to rest, you can try practising tonight."


	4. Chapter 4

Li Ann and the guys spent part of the afternoon sorting out their updated cover stories. Ben's mom and Casey knew Li Ann and Mac in the personas they'd developed for the Dog Pack case—a martial arts instructor and a bouncer, respectively—and they knew Vic as Mac's boyfriend, an ex-cop security guard. Now that Mac and Vic were doing a job that wasn't top-secret, it seemed logical that they would bring their cover stories into alignment with their actual lives.

"But how do we explain why Geneviève and Huang hired _us_?" Vic asked. "We didn't exactly have any nannying experience on our CVs. Not even on our _fake_ CVs."

Li Ann shrugged. "Focus on the bodyguard side. You can say there was a kidnapping attempt that spooked them. You don't have to give details—it would look weird if you did, actually."

After some back-and-forth debate, they decided not to include the fact that Taylor was Mac and Li Ann's biological daughter in their story. That ended up being a vote, two against one, with Mac the holdout.

"It makes the story a lot more complicated," Li Ann repeated, fighting down the urge to cave to Mac's puppy-dog eyes. "How do we explain why they hired her biological father as her nanny, without talking about how we rescued her from commandos and looked after her all summer?"

"Okay, okay," Mac conceded glumly.

As for their long absence, they agreed that they'd claim to have been in Hong Kong. "We went back for a visit," Li Ann decided, "and then Mac and I got caught in an apartment fire, and we were hospitalized for a while."

"Does there have to have been a fire?" Mac protested.

"I really think there does," Li Ann said. "Otherwise, they'd find it pretty weird that we've both suddenly developed severe asthma."

"Well, we don't have to tell them about _that_."

Li Ann sighed, and reached up to ruffle Mac's hair. He was lying on the couch in the living room, and she was sitting on the floor near his head. Vic was folding laundry on the armchair. "Sweetie," she said to Mac, "do you want to review what happened this morning?"

Mac didn't answer, which was fine. The question had been rhetorical.

"Ah, I'm not sure I can pretend to have been in Hong Kong all summer," Vic said. "I don't know anything about Hong Kong."

"Apart from everything we've been telling you about it for literally years," Mac pointed out with a bit of an eye roll.

"Anyway, you barely saw the city. You spent most of the summer at Mac's bedside in the hospital," Li Ann said.

"Oh, come on," Mac groaned. "Now you've got me in the hospital for _months_? How come _I'm_ the one who has to have spent the whole summer in the hospital?"

"Because you're the one having asthma attacks when you step out of the Starbucks," Li Ann pointed out. Was she taking revenge on Mac for the way he'd scared her this morning? Maybe a little. "And you look like you've been sick. I look fine."

"What? I don't look _sickly_ ," Mac said, sounding increasingly appalled. "Vic, tell her she's delusional."

"Ah..." Vic paused in the folding of a pair of blue fuzzy footie pyjamas, and frowned at Mac. "You haven't been eating enough."

Mac didn't try to deny it. "You're just jealous of my figure," he muttered, and closed his eyes, looking defeated.

Li Ann took pity on him. "We could say that you pulled me out of the fire," she offered as an olive branch. "My knee was hurt. You had to carry me down three flights of stairs."

He opened his eyes again, and met hers. "Four," he bargained.

"Deal." She sealed it with a kiss.

* * *

When it was time to head out the door, Li Ann watched Vic fussing over Mac.

"You've got your rescue inhaler?"

"Right here," Mac said, patting his pocket. His eyes darted sideways to meet Li Ann's, a little sheepishly. She rolled her eyes at him in response, but then tagged on a quick reassuring smile.

Mac had always been like this. Impulsive, careless, and bad with details. The godfather had berated him for it often—but never angrily; Mac was too easy to love. Michael, Li Ann realized, had compensated in his own, dominating way. The tight control he'd kept over Mac had also been a form of protection. And Li Ann had played her own role. She'd always known that she had to watch out for her less-responsible brother.

Vic's care wasn't _causing_ this. Mac was who he was, and Vic was better at protecting him than Li Ann was.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you guys earlier," she said.

Mac shrugged. "I'm sorry I went out without my inhaler this morning; that was really dumb."

" _You're_ dumb," Li Ann replied, affectionately. And then watched with bemusement as Vic attentively wrapped a scarf around Mac's neck, pulling it up so that it covered Mac's face all the way to the bottom of his eyes. She remembered Vic giving Mac that scarf last Christmas, actually.

"Ready?" she asked, taking a step towards the door as Vic finished tucking in the ends of the scarf.

"Wait," Vic said, and went to fish in the basket of winter accessories that sat beside the bench by the door. He pulled out a wide, jewel-blue scarf that probably belonged to Geneviève. "You too," he said, handing it to Li Ann.

"Ah, okay," she said, wrapping it twice around her neck. "Thanks."

"No, like this," Vic said, and stepped in close so that he could tug the front of the scarf up to cover her mouth and nose, like he'd done for Mac. "It'll warm up the air you're breathing, and keep it moist, too. It's still really fucking cold out there."

Li Ann felt unbalanced for a moment, not sure how to react. But then she realized that she'd better accept Vic's fussing with grace. It was actually very sweet, if unexpected—and she _knew_ from watching him with Mac that if she resisted, he would double down. "Thanks," she said again, muffled by the scarf.

Mac made a little noise, which sounded like _ha!_. All she could see was his eyes, but it looked like he was gloating.

* * *

Ben's mom, Rebekah, adored Mac. Of course she did; Mac had thrown himself in front of a bullet to save her son's life.

And it obviously didn't hurt that Mac turned on his charm, full throttle, whenever he was with her.

This wasn't to say that she had any lack of affection for Li Ann or Vic, either. Li Ann had acted fast onstage and pushed Ebony Stalking out of danger; Vic (according to the story that Ben had helped them manage after the fact) had bravely chased the shooter out of the Rainbow Room, and held onto him until the police arrived. All three of them were heroes, in Rebekah's eyes.

Mac, of course, lapped up the attention. Li Ann saw the delight on his face as he leaned over to let Rebekah kiss his cheek when they met in the foyer of the restaurant.

Before any real conversation happened, they all headed over to the buffet to fill their plates. Li Ann took small, doubtful samples of pretty much everything, figuring that she could go back for seconds of anything that actually tasted good. She noticed that Vic was piling his own plate high, looking very pleased.

"Benjamin tells me that you've had quite the career change!" Rebekah said cheerfully to Mac and Vic once they'd settled themselves at the table.

"Ah, yes," Vic said, picking up his fork. "You could say that."

Li Ann picked up the chopsticks that she'd had to request specially, and nibbled a piece of mushy North American broccoli covered in a thick, sweet sauce.

"I brought some pictures this time," Mac jumped in. He pulled a little stack of 4 x 6 glossies out of his jacket. He must have raided one of the Bouchard-Wongs' photo albums at some point in the afternoon.

Ben reached out a hand, and flipped politely through the stack. Then he handed them on to his mom, and gave Mac and Li Ann a quite sincere smile. "She's lovely," he said. "She looks just like you."

Vic shot Li Ann a quick, panicky look.

Well. They had forgotten to brief _Ben_ on the details they'd agreed to for their new cover story, hadn't they?

"Thanks," Mac said without missing a beat. "So what all have you told Rebekah and Casey about what we've been up to?"

"Oh..." Ben said—and then there was a slight, uncomfortable hesitation, which Li Ann guessed was the moment when Ben also realized that this conversation was complicated and that the four of them probably should have checked in ahead of time. "Ah, just that Taylor's adoptive parents had hired you. I said you'd fill in the details at dinner."

"There's not much to tell, really," Mac said smoothly. "Geneviève and Huang had decided they wanted Taylor to know her birth parents, so they reached out to us through the adoption agency. And then ... they'd just lost their previous nanny, and Vic and I were at loose ends."

"That's kismet," Rebekah declared with an appreciative nod. "It's wonderful that that little girl will have so many people to love her."

"So is that where you were hiding all summer?" Casey asked. He was sitting on Ben's other side, dressed in a plain brown shirt with a black silk tie. "North York?"

"Ah, no," Vic jumped in quickly. "Ben didn't tell you?"

"No," Ben assured them. "I really wasn't sure how to tell that story, so I figured I'd leave it to you."

Li Ann sent him a look of approval across the table.

Vic, meanwhile, launched into their rehearsed story of the Hong Kong apartment fire.

Mac's face showed a brief flash of stubbornness—Li Ann knew that he hadn't been in love with that aspect of their story. Which was probably why Vic had jumped into it so fast, to stop Mac from improvising something else on the fly.

But once the story was on the table, Mac threw himself right into it—describing the disorienting flickering lights, the choking smoke, his desperate run back _up_ the stairs when he realized that Li Ann wasn't behind him.

Li Ann tried to school her expression into something appropriately grateful-for-having-been-rescued, but indulged herself in kicking his shin under the table when she thought he was embellishing a little _too_ much.

"Holy shit," Casey said. "That must have been terrifying. Thank God you made it out okay."

"They made it out _alive_ ," Vic said. "They weren't _okay_. The smoke and the heat injured their lungs. Mac ended up in the hospital for a while, there were complications—he developed pneumonia—for a while there I really didn't know if he was going to make it."

Vic wasn't just telling a story, Li Ann realized, noticing how his fork had stilled and his grip on it had gone white-knuckled. He was re-living his actual experience at Mac's bedside in October.

"Oy vey," Ben murmured. "Really?" That was directed at Li Ann. She and Mac hadn't gotten around to mentioning the pneumonia or the hospital stay in their conversation earlier.

"Yes," she said, voicing it with a little extra emphasis to assure Ben that she was giving him the real answer. "He gave us quite a scare," she added, patting Mac's shoulder. And then, after a moment's thought, she reached across Mac to squeeze Vic's hand.

Vic had had to carry the burden of worry mostly alone, that time. Li Ann had been too sick herself to even visit Mac in the hospital before he was out of danger. And she'd had a lot to deal with at home, keeping the parade of helpful neighbours from discovering any of their secrets. She still remembered the struggle of stuffing all the guns and combat gear up through the attic trap door when she was barely strong enough to stand up.

"Benjamin," Rebekah said, "why don't you get us a bottle of wine for the table."

"Is that okay for everybody?" Ben asked, his gaze mainly flicking from Mac to Vic. 

Casey, meanwhile, was already on his feet and putting his napkin on his chair. "I'll take care of it," he said.

"Yeah, it's fine," Vic said.

"Great idea," Mac added. "You're the best, Rebekah!"

* * *

Li Ann wouldn't have gone as far as to say that the wine pairing was _excellent_ —although Casey had clearly done his best—but after a glass and a half she at least had a nice buzz that made her less critical of the food.

The little stack of photos had made the rounds and ended up sitting on the table between herself and Mac. In a conversational lull—Vic, Ben and Casey had just gone back to the buffet for seconds, and Rebekah had excused herself to the washroom—Li Ann picked them up and looked at them curiously.

They weren't all recent, she noticed immediately. The first two showed snow in the background and Taylor looking just like she had yesterday, so they'd obviously been taken in the past month, but in the next few she got younger and younger. Her hair was shorter, her face rounder, her cheeks bigger. Li Ann had never seen her like this.

In the last photo, Taylor was a red, wrinkled newborn wrapped in a yellow blanket. Geneviève was holding her, seated in a metal chair, and Huang was standing behind. Both parents were staring at Taylor with expressions of rapt joy.

"She was _tiny_ , wasn't she?" Mac said softly.

Li Ann nodded, staring at the photo. "She came a month early," she recalled. "I guess she must have been underweight. I never saw her." She made a wry face. "She didn't _feel_ small, coming out. Believe it or not, that was the most painful experience of my life. Thirty hours of labour; no anaesthetic."

"I'm so sorry you had to be alone for that," Mac said, tucking his chin against her shoulder.

"I wasn't, actually. The Director was there."

Mac backed off, looking appalled. "That sounds _worse_ than being alone."

"No, she was helpful," Li Ann said. "She held my hand, and she kept telling me to be strong, that she knew I could do it." She studied the photo. The puke-green cinder blocks in the background of the photo had a grim familiarity. "This was taken _in_ the prison," she realized. "This must be immediately after she was born."

"So Taylor had parents who loved her as soon as she came out into the world," Mac said. "That's good. That's really good, Li Ann."

The conversation was interrupted at that point by everyone else coming back to the table.

"Are you really going to eat all that?" Mac asked, side-eyeing Vic's plate.

"They have _deep fried wontons_ ," Vic said happily. "You guys _never_ let me get this stuff."

* * *

The movie theatre was in the same suburban strip mall as the restaurant, but there was no indoor connection.

"I'm going to get my car and drive Mom door-to-door," Ben said, already pulling out his car keys. "Anybody else want a lift?"

"Mac and Li Ann do," Vic said promptly. "I'll walk with Casey."

"Um, the theatre is _right there_ ," Mac said, pointing through the glass of the restaurant's front door. "What is that, 300 metres?"

"Three hundred metres that you're not gonna walk," Vic said. "Thanks, Ben."

"Mac and I have been having some trouble with the cold air," Li Ann explained as Ben left, since Casey in particular was looking a little confused. "Because of the lung damage." She figured that throwing herself in there too would make Mac feel a little better—and frankly, she did _not_ want to have the experience that Mac had had this morning, so she did appreciate Ben's offer and Vic's quick acceptance on their behalf.

"That's too bad," Rebekah said, peering up at them sympathetically. "Winter will be difficult, if that's the case. Are you looking at a very long period for recovery, then?"

"No," Mac said.

"Well, yes, probably—" Li Ann said at the same time.

" _No_ ," Mac repeated, giving her an exasperated look. "We're not fucking _recovering_. We've healed as much as we're going to. I am thoroughly fucked." He pulled his rescue inhaler out of his coat pocket and rolled it over his fingers, like a knife trick. "This is my fucking life now." He vanished the inhaler again and hunched his shoulders, crossing his arms and tucking his hands into his armpits.

"Mac..." Vic said in a low voice, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry," Li Ann said meanwhile to Rebekah, since that had been a lot of swearing.

"No, I'm sorry," she said. "That is a shitty thing for life to throw at you. It's okay to be angry about it."

"I'm not angry," Mac said, although he was still all hunched up. "I like my new job _way_ better than my old job."

That made Li Ann a little nervous, cover-story-wise, since in their fictional version of the chain of events there was no causal link between Mac's injury and his new job. But Rebekah and Casey didn't seem to notice. "So life handed you one shitty thing and one good thing," Rebekah said. "The shitty thing's still shitty, and you're allowed to be upset."

"That's for sure," Casey said. "Man, when I got my diagnosis—I went on a two-week bender." He made a face. "Not that I recommend that as a coping method."

"Noted," Mac said, with a meek glance at Vic.

"Are you still able to teach your classes?" Rebekah asked Li Ann.

When they were prepping their story, they hadn't written in a career change for Li Ann. She thought that if she really had been doing what Rebekah and Casey thought she was doing—teaching mixed martial arts in private lessons—she probably could have picked it up again when they got back to Toronto in November. She didn't have nearly the aerobic capacity that she used to, but she still had the skills. Even on her six week work trip, she'd been training every day, and sparring when she could find appropriate partners—Agent McDonough didn't know how to fight at her level, but he'd put her in touch with a few other folks from the Vancouver branch.

Nevertheless, she heard herself saying: "No, I have a new job now. Working for the agency." She heard Vic making a little strangled noise. "The adoption agency that placed Taylor with Geneviève and Huang," she clarified. "I'm going to be interviewing prospective parents, helping to match them with children."

"I would have thought you'd need some kind of training for that," Casey mentioned, a bit dubiously.

"Sure," Li Ann said. "That's where I've been for the past six weeks. Training at their Vancouver office."

"Well, that sounds like a lovely thing to be doing," Rebekah said. "I'm really happy for you."

* * *

Mac and Vic didn't have a chance to ask her about it until after the movie, when the three of them were finally alone in Li Ann's car. "What the hell, Li Ann?" Vic asked. "That was like something _Mac_ would pull."

Vic had fetched the car from the parking lot at the end of the movie, to once again save Li Ann and Mac a short walk in the cold, but Li Ann had insisted on driving them home. Mac had called shotgun, so Vic was in the back seat.

"Hey, my improv skills saved your asses," Mac said. "When Ben said Taylor looked like us, you and Li Ann just _froze_."

"You didn't improv—you had that story ready to _go_ ," Vic accused him. "You wanted to tell them that Taylor was yours all along."

"It made more sense anyway," Mac said, easy with the contentment of having gotten his own way. "You really think we could've hidden that, long-term? What if we have them over for _dinner_? Geneviève and Huang are open about me being the bio-dad; that's how Huang introduced me to his _badminton_ partner last week."

"My new story was better than the old one too," Li Ann said, checking the rear-view mirror and switching lanes. "It matches better with what I'm actually doing. Less opportunity for slip-ups. Now even if one of us, or Ben, mentions 'the Agency,' it'll just seem like we're talking about the adoption agency." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Sorry," she added belatedly. "It just came to me in the moment."

Vic grumbled and shifted in his seat. "Why do we even make plans if we're not going to follow them?"

"Let's make plans for _tonight_ ," Mac said. "We've got the house to ourselves. Li Ann, are you gonna stay over?"

"No, I'm just going to drop you off," she said. "I've only had two days at home since _June_ ; I really have some things I need to do before I go back to work."

"Okay, just me and Vic then. Kung fu movies and popcorn in our underwear it is," Mac said cheerfully.

In the back seat, Vic laughed.

"So you're doing okay?" Li Ann asked, a bit quietly. The question was just for Mac. The past twenty-four hours really had been a bit of a roller coaster ride.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll be fine."


	5. Chapter 5

The Director slid a portfolio clad in rich burgundy leather across the desk to Li Ann. "Here's my wish list. I need three goons, a stunt driver, a hacker, and a makeup artist by Friday."

"Ah, okay," Li Ann said. "So, New Year's Eve? That's a pretty short timeline..."

"Well, they don't need to be _excellent_ ," the Director said. "It's a one-time gig."

"Why—" Li Ann started to ask.

"Yours is not to reason why," the Director countered in a warning sing-song.

"All right." Li Ann frowned at the folder. "I'll check in with Nathan and get to work."

"Oh, stay for a moment and chat." The Director brought out two small glasses, and a crystal decanter full of amber liquid. "How are the boys? Did they hold up all right without you?" She poured a finger's worth of drink into each glass, and pushed one across to Li Ann.

Li Ann took the glass and sniffed it carefully. Scotch.

"I wouldn't poison you," the Director assured her. "You're useful to me. And I like you. It's a twenty-year-old Glenlivet." She added a wide-mouthed tumbler and a plastic water bottle to the desktop; cracked the seal, and poured the water. Then she pushed the tumbler across the table to Li Ann.

Okay. Li Ann had never done this with the Director before, but she knew the ritual. She dipped her fingers into the water glass, and then let a few drops of water fall into the whisky. Then she took a drink of the whisky. It was quite nice.

She pushed the water back across the desk. The Director gave her an approving look, and repeated the ritual.

"So?" the Director prompted.

"Why do you ask?" Li Ann countered, suspiciously. The last time the Director had asked her about Mac and Vic, it had been a prelude to separating her from them for six weeks.

The Director shrugged. "Prurient fascination. Or maybe I'm trying to be friendly. Who can tell?"

Li Ann blinked. Took another sip. "They're settling in."

"And is it the dull domestic paradise that Vic always dreamed of?"

Li Ann really wasn't sure how to answer that, even _if_ she was planning to confide in the Director—and the wisdom of doing so was an open question. "Ah, Vic seems to be thriving," she said.

"Like a duck to water, I'm sure." The Director eyed her. "Your omission is suggestive."

"Mac is having some trouble with the transition," Li Ann admitted, wondering if it was a betrayal.

"Of course he is," the Director said. "Is he drinking?"

"No," Li Ann said. "Vic says he seems depressed. I didn't really see that, over Christmas, but he's definitely lost weight. Ah, what do you mean _of course_ he is? I really thought that getting out of the Agency would make him happy."

The Director shrugged. "He's an adrenaline junkie. Of course retirement's going to be hard for him. Dobrinsky's offering two-to-one odds he goes off the deep end before the end of February."

Li Ann looked at her, appalled. "You're _betting_ against Mac adjusting successfully to civilian life?"

"Against? Never. He's a survivor. And he's got you and Vic in his corner." The Director leaned in, smiling one of her scary smiles. "So let's see if we can work out how to smooth his path a little. I've got the equivalent of a trip to the Bahamas riding on this. Tell me about this depression of his."

Well, an offer of help was an offer of help. And Vic was at a loss, so... "He's been staying in bed all day. Not all the time, just sometimes."

"He's still taking the medication? That Patricia prescribed him?"

The anti-depressants. Li Ann assumed that Vic would have said something, if he wasn't. "Yes," she said.

"Has he kept up his training? The physical side of it, I mean."

"I'm not sure." Neither Mac nor Vic had said anything about it. And Li Ann knew that Geneviève and Huang didn't have a home gym—or even any room with enough furniture-free open space to do katas in. "No, I don't think so."

"Well, that might be a place to start," the Director said. "I know it sounds simplistic, but there are well-established links between physical activity and mood."

"That's ... not implausible," Li Ann admitted. "He even said—he missed fighting with Michael. Maybe it's not Michael, maybe it's just the fighting."

"You could help him with that," the Director said.

Li Ann frowned, thinking it through. "There's no space for that at the place where he's living."

"Oh, use the Agency gym if you want. I'll re-issue his security clearance at the lowest level."

"Wow," Li Ann said. "Thanks. That's very ... kind of you."

* * *

Li Ann went over to the Bouchard-Wongs' place immediately after work that day. She let herself in; Geneviève had given her a key on Christmas Eve.

Vic was vacuuming the front hall. "Oh hey," he said. "I didn't know you were coming over. Are you going to want dinner? I've got a chicken roasting, it'll be ready in a few minutes."

"Sure, that sounds great," Li Ann said, pitching her voice to carry over the drone of the vacuum. "I was hoping to talk to Mac," she added. "Is he home?"

"He's in bed."

"Oh." Li Ann frowned. "Taking a nap, or...?"

Vic finally turned off the vacuum. "No, he's been in bed all day. Yesterday, too."

"What? Is he sick?"

"No, he's depressed. I _told_ you about this, Li Ann."

"But he seemed _fine_ when I dropped you guys off Christmas night."

Vic shrugged. "Sure. We cuddled and watched a movie. And then on Boxing Day he didn't get out of bed."

Li Ann, belatedly, threw off her coat and started unfastening her boots. She had to get to Mac. "Why didn't you _call_ me?"

"You said you had a lot of things to do. Li Ann, it's not a _crisis_ ," Vic said gently. "He's been doing this on and off all month. He'll probably get up tomorrow. And he's safe, he's not doing anything to hurt himself."

"Spending two days in _bed_ is not okay. Has he been eating?" She read Vic's wince as a 'no.' "You should have called me."

"So that you could do what, exactly? Do you think I haven't tried everything I can think of?" Vic sounded defensive, now. "When we talked about this Christmas Eve, you said yourself that he probably just needs more time."

That had been easy to say when when it hadn't been _happening_. "I'm going upstairs," Li Ann said, already on her way.

"Okay," Vic sighed, and turned the vacuum back on. "Good luck."

* * *

The light in the guys' bedroom was on. Mac was _on_ the bed, rather than in it; the covers were pulled up and he was lying on top of them. He was wearing dark grey sweatpants and a black hoodie, with the hood pulled up. He was barefoot. He lay on his side, knees half-bent, with his hands clasped together in front of his mouth. He was facing the door; his eyes tracked her as soon as she came in, but he didn't move at all.

Li Ann noticed a tray on the bedside table; there was a plate with cold, uneaten toast and dried-up chunks of cheese, and a half-full mug of tea.

She sighed, and climbed onto the bed. She lay down facing him and put her hands over his. "Mac," she said.

"Uh huh?"

Okay, good, he hadn't stopped _talking_. "What's going on?"

"Huh? Nothing."

"Why are you in bed?"

Mac made a vague, noncommittal sound.

She touched her fingertips to his cheek. It was rough with two-day stubble. "You should get up."

"In a bit."

"No. Right now."

Mac just closed his eyes.

"Come on, Mac. If you don't get up voluntarily, I'm going to _make_ you."

"Can't," he said. "It's too hard."

She frowned, and traced his cheekbone. "Are you having trouble breathing?" she asked. Vic might be wrong; it might be physical.

"No, I'm fine," he said, opening his eyes again. "It's just too much today. I'll get up tomorrow." There was no spark in his voice; everything he said was muted and listless.

" _What's_ too much?" she asked. "You didn't even have anything to do today. You're on vacation."

"Shaving," he said. "Putting on socks. It's too much. I'll do it tomorrow."

Li Ann heard Vic's footsteps approaching. "Dinner's ready," he said, poking his head into the room.

"Okay, we'll be right down," she said. "Come on, Mac."

"No, it's okay, I'm not hungry," he said.

"I don't care if you're hungry," she said. "You have to eat."

Mac closed his eyes.

Li Ann felt a tap on her shoulder. "It's okay, Li Ann," Vic said softly. "Come downstairs and eat."

* * *

Reluctantly, Li Ann followed Vic down to the dining room, leaving Mac immobile on the bed.

There were two places set at the big table. Two plates laden with chicken, rice, carrots and peas. "You didn't expect him to come down," she observed, a bit accusingly.

Vic shrugged uncomfortably. "He doesn't eat when he's like this."

"Vic, he _can't not eat_ ," Li Ann insisted, her voice cracking a little.

Vic wasn't taking this seriously enough. Vic had probably never watched anybody's muscle tissue wasting away from starvation.

Li Ann remembered her sisters' stick-thin arms and legs. Her own.

"I'm making a broth out of the bones," Vic said. "I'll bring it up to him later. He's been drinking tea; I can probably get him to take some broth."

"That's not good enough," Li Ann countered. "We should ask Ben to call Reshmi. Maybe she could come over tonight."

Vic rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. "Actually, I tried calling her directly a couple of weeks ago. I figured now that we're out of the Agency, we don't need to use Ben as a cut-out anymore. But it turns out she's in Calcutta until January 15th. Her answering machine message gave the number for another doctor to call in the case of a crisis, but—well."

Li Ann nodded. They'd taken a big risk, out of desperation, letting Reshmi learn who Mac really was and what he really did so that she could help him. They'd gone behind the Director's back, and as far as they knew they hadn't been caught. But widening that circle any further was a bad idea.

Okay. There was nowhere to go for help, and Vic was at a loss. It was up to Li Ann to handle this.

She stood up, grabbing the plate that Vic had prepared for her. "Screw this. I'll get him to eat."

* * *

Michael and the Director were out of the picture. Vic was too gentle.

Li Ann had to be the bad cop now.

She did give Mac one last chance. "I brought your dinner," she said brightly as she came into the room.

"Hm? Oh," he said.

She cleared the old tray off the bedside table, and put the dinner plate there instead. "So, you should eat it."

"Not right now," he said.

"Okay." She leaned over and brushed his forehead with a light kiss. "I love you, Mac. You know that, right?"

"Uh huh," he said, in the same subdued, flat tone he'd been saying everything else.

"And you trust me, right?" As she said it, she slipped her hands in between his—separated his hands where they'd been folded together. Eased apart the fingers of his left hand, holding it between both of hers now.

"Of course I do," he said.

Carefully, deliberately, she bent back his left thumb.

"Huh?" he said. "Ow. Li Ann? Ow—what are you—ow! OW! Shit! OwowowowOW! What the FUCK?! Aaagh! Stop, please stop, _fuck_ , shit, oh fuck, oooOOww, gah!"

She'd positioned herself carefully to make sure that he couldn't get away while she did it. And she counted to twenty, silently, slowly.

It wasn't enough just to scare him. She had to make sure that the endorphin rush was sufficiently strong.

When she let go, he let out a final yelping gasp—actually, it was more like a sob—and he cradled his hand to his body. "What the _fuck_ , Li Ann?" he managed to say after a moment.

He sounded more alive than he had all evening.

"Sit up," she said mildly.

Obediently, he pushed himself into a sitting position—using only his right hand.

Li Ann picked up the plate, and speared a couple of peas onto the end of the fork. "Open up," she said.

Mac was staring at her a bit wildly, but when she bumped the fork against his lips—okay, maybe 'jabbed' more than 'bumped'—he opened his mouth.

She scraped the peas off against his upper teeth, and withdrew the fork. "Chew, and swallow," she said. And then watched with satisfaction as he did.

Quick footsteps outside of the bedroom door. "Is everything okay?" Vic demanded, barging into the room. "I thought I heard—"

Li Ann was feeding Mac a morsel of carrot.

"Oh," Vic said, sounding a little stunned. "So you're—okay. Um, that's great. I'll, um, just be downstairs then."

"Vic?" Mac said. "Could I have an ice pack?"

"Ah—an _ice_ pack," Vic repeated. "Why?"

Mac's eyes darted anxiously to Li Ann, and then back to Vic. "I have a headache," he said. "From lying down for so long."

Oh. That wasn't a good dynamic. Li Ann figured she'd better nip that one in the bud. "He probably has a little soft tissue damage in his left hand," she said. "From where I held him in a thumb lock until he was ready to eat."

"You _what_?" Vic said.

"It worked," Li Ann pointed out. She fed Mac a piece of chicken. "He might _also_ have a headache, I don't know."

Mac shook his head, chewing.

" _Jesus_ , Li Ann," Vic started ... but then just shook his head, frowning, and left.

By the time he came back with an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel, Li Ann had fed three more bites of chicken to Mac.

"Can I talk to you for a minute in the hallway, Li Ann?" Vic asked as he handed over the ice pack. There was a definite edge to his voice.

"Later," she said. "I'm busy right now."

Mac held the ice pack against his left hand with his right. "Don't be mad at her," he said. "I was fucking up, I know."

"Mac, you weren't fucking up." Vic climbed onto the bed too, and tucked himself in behind Mac. He rested his hands on Mac's hips, and his chin on Mac's shoulder. "This is hard for you, that's all."

"But _why_?" Mac said, plaintively. "It doesn't make sense. Everything's really _easy_ here."

Li Ann fed him a carrot.

"Things being easy for the first time in your life might be a thing that _is_ hard," Vic said. "But you know I'm here for you, right? No matter what."

The next time Mac blinked, a tear trickled out of one of his eyes.

"Stop being mushy, Vic," Li Ann said. "You're going to make him cry, and if he cries he'll stop eating, and he has to eat."

"Um, maybe you're going a little overboard here, Li Ann?" Vic said. "He wasn't _starving_. He probably would have eaten normally tomorrow."

"Li Ann has a thing about food," Mac said, sniffling a little. "You'd better just let her finish feeding me."

She fed him another piece of chicken. "Maybe you could feed _yourself_ the rest of the plate, actually?"

"Maybe I could if you hadn't _broken_ my _thumb_ ," he said, talking with his mouth full. "How am I supposed to hold the knife?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's not broken. It's just a little sore." But she set to cutting the remaining chicken into bite-sized pieces.

"Thing about food," Vic repeated, a little slow on the uptake. "Oh, shit, you _told_ me about this—"

Li Ann handed the fork to Mac, and balanced the plate on her own knee so that it was in easy reach for him.

"You starved," Vic said, looking at Li Ann with dawning understanding. "Literally. When you were a kid."

"I'm sorry, Li Ann," Mac said. "I know it makes you anxious when I don't eat. I was just too ... I don't know. Lost. In my head." He speared some peas and a carrot together, and ate them.

She watched intently while he cleared his plate.

"Okay, now I'm taking you out," she said.

" _Out_?" Mac said. "Where?"

"Do you trust me?" she asked.

Mac eyed her warily. "The last time you asked that, you nearly broke my thumb."

"Uh huh," Li Ann agreed. "So do you still trust me?"

"Of course I do," Mac said.

"Er... I'm not entirely sure that I do," Vic interjected.

"I'll bring him back in one piece," Li Ann said. "I promise."

* * *

Since she hadn't had any supper herself, Li Ann grabbed a banana on the way out the door and got Mac to feed it to her while she drove. Turnabout was fair play, after all.

Maybe because of the dark and the snow, Mac didn't pick up on where they were going until they were actually pulling into the Agency's parking lot.

"Oh. No. What the fuck are we doing here?"

The parking lot was totally empty. "You said you miss fighting Michael," Li Ann reminded him. "I think maybe you just miss _fighting_. The Director said you can use the Agency gym if you're with me."

"I am not going in there," Mac said. "Nuh uh, no way. Never again."

"You're not going on a _mission_ ," Li Ann said, easing into the parking spot nearest the Agency's entrance. "We're just using the facilities. It's after hours, nobody'll be there."

"It's _the Agency_ ," Mac said. "It's not safe."

"Well, now you're being irrational," she said. "The Agency itself is perfectly safe."

"Except for the time ten members of a Colombian drug cartel 'accidentally' got loose in the corridors," Mac said.

Li Ann shrugged. "That was a one-time thing."

"And the time Paul tried to kill us."

"He's over that now. Anyway, he's gone home for the day."

"And the time Mr. Happy tried to kill us," Mac continued, stubbornly.

"I promise, nobody's planning a coup tonight."

"And the time the Director tried to shoot me in the briefing room."

"Ah..." Li Ann frowned. "I don't think she was really _trying_. I mean, she missed, didn't she?"

"Because I _ducked_!"

"Okay." Mac seemed to be getting really agitated, so Li Ann took off one of her driving gloves so that she could caress his cheek. "I admit, the Agency is not exactly safe. But nobody else is here tonight, and I really want you to try working out with me. I did some reading on my lunch break today. I got Nathan to find me some articles. Did you know that regular exercise is at least as effective as drugs in treating depression? _Especially_ in veterans with PTSD, which is basically what you are. And you haven't been exercising at all since you left the Agency, have you?"

"No," Mac admitted. "Geneviève and Huang don't have the set-up, and..." he trailed off. "I guess it didn't seem important anymore."

"Well, it _is_ ," Li Ann said. "So let's go."

* * *

They warmed up by holding practice pads for each other and drilling some basic kicks. Li Ann was rewarded by seeing Mac basically come back to life before her eyes. He went from being listless and subdued to literally bouncing on his toes and laughing.

"Fuck, Li Ann, you were so right," he said, before coiling himself into a spinning kick that knocked her several feet backwards. "I didn't even _know_ how much I missed this."

After the warm-up, they fought.

Li Ann quickly realized that _she'd_ missed this, too. They hadn't sparred together since they both got sick at Key River, and that had been early October.

Sparring with other people was satisfying too—was _important_ , in fact, since everybody moved differently—but fighting with Mac felt like coming home.

They played with each other gently at first, feinting and darting in and out, attacking but not touching each other. Then they paused to put on some protective equipment, and started up again, full contact.

She grinned when she caught him with a jab to the throat. Laughed when he knocked her off-balance with a sweep, and she fell on her ass. Enjoyed circling him, wary, looking for an opening, and then moving to counterattack so quickly when his attack came that her foot caught his chest before he'd finished raising his leg.

"Got you," she gloated.

"Seven-five," he said, grinning back at her.

Li Ann felt the sweat trickling down her forehead; felt her muscles protesting when she strained to throw him. It was a good feeling.

The heavy feeling in her lungs wasn't as good, but she was managing it. They'd both taken doses from their rescue inhalers before they'd started. They couldn't go at it as hard as they used to, before the fire, but they rested without stopping the combat, just taking it a little slower while they caught their breath.

They drew it out for a while like that—nearly twenty minutes by the clock on the wall. Then, following another short burst where they pressed each other hard, Mac put up a hand and signalled for a stop.

"Yeah?" Li Ann said, panting. She took the opportunity to wipe some sweat away from her eyes.

Mac spat out his mouth guard and coughed. And went down on his knees.

"Uh oh," Li Ann murmured. She slipped her own mouth guard into her pocket and crouched down next to him. "A little too much?"

He nodded, and wheezed.

At least this time she knew where his inhaler was. She hurried over to the wall where they'd left their coats and boots in a pile on the floor. His inhaler was in the right pocket of his coat.

She brought it to him, and he used it.

Then she sat next to him so that he could lean against her. She loosened the bindings on his chest protector, and took his helmet off him. Ruffled his sweaty hair. He was still wheezing, but he didn't look scared—just resigned. He took another dose.

"So, that's probably enough fighting for one day," she said.

He nodded.

They rested there on the floor for another ten minutes or so. Li Ann took her own equipment off, and helped Mac with his. She could feel her sweat drying and cooling, and her muscles stiffening.

"Let's shower together," Li Ann said, when Mac finally indicated that he was ready to move.

Mac's expression flicked quickly through surprised delight into a wary frown. "Because it's sexy?" he asked. "Or because you think I might collapse again?"

She patted his cheek. "Go ahead and believe whatever makes you happy."

He rolled his eyes at her, but snorted a laugh when she kissed him.

* * *

She brought him into the women's locker room; it was nicer than the men's.

There were three shower heads lined up along the wall; no stalls or curtains. They turned two of them on, hot.

Their clothes, they hung up carefully on the hooks on the far wall. This had been a spontaneous and not well-planned excursion; they didn't have fresh clothes to change into, they'd have to get back into the sweaty ones after the shower.

Li Ann squirted out some soap from the dispenser on the wall, and lathered it between her hands. "Would you like me to wash you?" she offered.

Mac's eyes lit up. "Yes, please."

She tugged him out of the spray of water, and started rubbing the lather over his body. She combined it with a light massage, and was rewarded with happy-sounding murmurs.

She worked her way down his body to his legs, avoiding his erect cock. She crouched to wash him all the way down to his feet, digging her fingers into his calves to massage them along the way.

When she stood up, he gave her a slightly wobbly grin. "That was nice," he said.

She pushed him gently into the shower spray. "Wash the soap off," she said.

He did, and then asked, "Do you want a turn?"

She did.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of his warm, slippery hands working their way over her body. He knew just where to press on her back to release the knots of tension that she hadn't even realized she'd been carrying.

When he was done, she took her turn rinsing off.

"Can we kiss?" he asked when she turned off the water.

"Sure," Li Ann smiled, and moved in towards him.

Mac took a half step back, and blocked her with a hand to her shoulder. "Wait," he said. "It's just—I can't help it, but if we hold each other now, you're definitely going to feel my dick. We can wait until we get dressed, if you'd rather."

Li Ann thought about that for a moment. Ever since she'd re-started their relationship with the 'no sex' rule, she'd drawn a firm line of avoiding genital contact.

She still didn't want to have sex. But after a year of comfortable physicality with Mac, she thought that she could handle having his dick brush up against her, without being worried that it would escalate into more than she wanted. "It's okay," she said. "It's just another part of your body."

He stood still, and let her come to him.

She went up a little bit onto her tiptoes and lifted her chin so that she could kiss him on the lips. Balance-wise, this made it fairly logical to press herself right up against his front.

He was warm. She appreciated that; the after-hours chill of the Agency was already starting to seep in, now that the hot shower spray was turned off.

He lifted a hand to the small of her back, and stabilized her against him.

She could feel his cock, a hard lump against her lower belly. When she nibbled Mac's lips, it twitched. She brushed a hand down the side of his face, and felt his cock twitch again.

She snickered, suppressing an all-out laugh.

"What?" Mac asked.

"It really has a mind of its own, doesn't it?" Li Ann observed. She brushed the sensitive skin at the outside of his eye with her thumb, and felt the responding twitch down below.

She giggled.

" _Vic_ thinks it's sexy," Mac said, putting on a mock-wounded tone.

"That's good," she said. "That's really convenient that he does."

And then a sharp tapping sound behind her made her jump.

Mac startled too—the two of them separated fast and instinctively turned towards the sound, backs to the wall.

 _Tap, tap, tap_ went the Director's heels on the tile floor.

The Director wore a fitted black suit over a white blouse with a plunging neckline, and a self-satisfied smile. She was carrying a small stack of folded grey clothing.

"I thought you might want to borrow these," she said, not yet handing them over. "I noticed that you didn't bring a change of clothes."

"Some people _knock_ ," Mac said, looking appalled. Li Ann noticed that he was cupping both hands protectively over his groin.

The Director showed a flash of teeth in her grin. "It's my Agency. I go where I want. Anyway, since you did opt for a co-ed shower, I assumed prudishness wasn't an issue." She tossed the clothing at them, one piece at a time. Mac scrambled into the pants first—no underwear had been provided. Li Ann dressed a bit more deliberately, eyeing the Director suspiciously.

"Oh, and Li Ann—" the Director said, "About my list. I'd like an electrician, too, if you have time to find one."

"Sure," Li Ann said evenly. "I can look into that."

"See you tomorrow," the Director said, and walked away, stilettos tapping.

Li Ann looked at Mac. He was staring after the Director wide-eyed. When she put her hand on his shoulder, she could feel him trembling. "Let's get out of here," she said quietly.

* * *

They didn't say anything else until they were in Li Ann's car and out of the parking lot; at that point, they could be _fairly_ sure they weren't under surveillance.

"I can't believe she _did_ that," Li Ann said, clutching the steering wheel considerably harder than was advisable.

"Nothing she hasn't seen before," Mac muttered, hunching down into his puffy coat.

"Well, in general terms, sure—I doubt there's _anything_ she hasn't seen. That doesn't make it okay for her to walk in on _us_ naked."

Mac shrugged, scowling. "She made it clear from the start that she could do that whenever she wanted, though."

"What are you talking about?"

"How she greets all her new agents on their first day of work," he said, like it should be meaningful to her. "You know, that trick with the doctor's office?" Seeing her blank look, he clarified: "She sends instructions for you to take off all your clothes, and then she comes in and does a slow three-sixty?"

"That is _not_ how my first day of work went," Li Ann said.

"She said she does it with everyone..." Mac moaned, and sank back into his coat. "She lied. Of course she did. So that was just me, then. Li Ann—weird question, sorry, but: has the Director ever broken into your apartment in the middle of the night while you're sleeping, and reviewed your job performance while fondling your naked body?"

"What?!" Li Ann said sharply. "No, of course not. Mac, has she done that to _you_?"

He didn't answer, but just winced and stared out the window.

"Are you sure it wasn't a dream?" she asked, grasping at a straw.

"It wasn't," he said. "I didn't go back to sleep, after. And I could smell her on the sheets until I washed them."

Li Ann felt cold in the pit of her stomach. The Director played head games, sure, but—"Mac," she said carefully, "did the Director ever, uh, take liberties with you? Sexually?"

"No," he said, and Li Ann felt herself untensing a little. "It was all just power games and teasing."

"But she touched you," Li Ann reiterated.

"Sure," Mac said. "All the time. Before I started dating Vic, anyway."

It was true, Li Ann realized. It had happened in front of her, in the briefing room, lots of times. The Director never touched Li Ann or Vic like that—maybe Jackie, occasionally. Li Ann had been used to seeing it happen, almost like background noise. She'd never stopped to wonder if it really bothered Mac—although he always squirmed uncomfortably, or froze, when it happened.

"I'm sorry," Li Ann said. "I think maybe I shouldn't have brought you back there."

"Well, I'm definitely never going back again. Can we agree on that?" Mac said.

Li Ann nodded, clenching her jaw.

"But I'm not sorry you brought me there tonight, even if you did basically kidnap me. You were right, about how I needed to train. To fight. Li Ann, for the first time in a month I don't feel like I'm walking through a thick fog."

"Is that how you've felt?" Li Ann glanced over at him, and gave his hand a quick squeeze before resuming her two-handed grip on the steering wheel. It was still snowing, and the roads were slippery. "Vic told me he thought you were depressed, but he also said that you wouldn't talk about it. That you kept saying there was nothing wrong."

Mac shrugged. "It didn't make _sense_ to feel that way. My life is basically _perfect_ now. But sometimes—even when I was playing with Taylor, I just wanted to curl up and cry. And I didn't want her to see that. Or Vic. What if he thinks I'm not happy with _him_?"

"Oh, Mac," Li Ann said softly. "I don't think it has to make sense. I think maybe—you've been through so much, and it's catching up to you now. And Vic understands. He knows it's not about him." She pulled to a careful stop at a red light, braking slowly. "If you stop eating again, though, I will hurt you," she warned him.

"Ah." He gave her a nervous grin. "It's good to have you back, Li Ann."

The light turned green.

"So what are you going to do about training?" Li Ann asked. "Since you're not going back to the Agency."

"I guess I can join a gym," Mac said.

"Tomorrow," Li Ann said firmly. "You're going to go out and get a gym membership _tomorrow_. Promise?"

"Promise," he said.


	6. Chapter 6

Vic was in the kitchen the next morning at seven-thirty to make eggs and bacon for Li Ann, which was sweet of him since he was on vacation and didn't really need to get up. He was wearing a red apron and whistling when Li Ann came downstairs dressed for work.

"Mac's not up?" Li Ann asked, taking a seat at the small kitchen table. She'd slept by herself in the guest room.

"Not yet," Vic said. "But I think today's gonna be a good day. We, uh, made love last night. For the first time in a month. I can't believe how well that worked, Li Ann. Jesus, just making him _exercise_. Why didn't I think of that?"

"It was the Director's idea," Li Ann admitted. "I didn't tell Mac that, by the way. I was afraid it would make him resistant."

"He does kind of have a thing about the Director," Vic agreed. "I won't tell him either."

"About that..." Li Ann said. And then delayed by going over to the counter to pour herself a cup of freshly-brewed coffee. "Did Mac ever say anything to you," she asked in an offhand tone, "about the Director coming into his apartment at night?"

"Huh? No. Why?"

Li Ann frowned, and brought her coffee back to the table. "Something he told me last night. And it got me thinking. About a lot of her interactions with him." She blew over the surface of the drink, which continued to give her a way to avoid looking at Vic. "I always used to think he was exaggerating, or even sort of joking, when he talked about being afraid of her."

"It would be crazy _not_ to be scared of the Director," Vic pointed out, bringing two plates to the table.

"Well, sure," Li Ann admitted. "But also, on a fundamental level, don't you respect her? And trust her?"

Vic looked thoughtful. "I mean ... not in all ways. But in some ways. Sure."

"I don't think Mac does. At all. I think she actually makes him feel threatened, and helpless."

"She did recruit him by threatening to have him killed," Vic pointed out.

"When I heard that story, I assumed she was bluffing about throwing him to the Tangs," Li Ann said. "I still do, frankly. And she definitely saved his life, by getting him out of prison. But ... I don't think that _Mac_ thinks she was bluffing."

"I think you're right," Vic admitted. "On both counts. Why did you ask me about her visiting him at night, though?"

"She did that, apparently. Let herself into his bedroom while he was sleeping, and ... touched him. Suggestively."

" _What?_ " Vic stared at her. "What the _fuck_? Oh my god, fuck, did the Director sexually assault Mac?"

"From what he said, it didn't go further than maybe light foreplay. But it definitely wasn't consensual."

"Jesus," Vic breathed, staring at her. "How—how did this come up?"

"She pulled one of her tricks last night. We thought we were alone at the Agency; we showered together, after our workout. Then she came in while we were naked and talked to us."

"About what?"

"Just a quick note about my current assignment. And she gave us fresh clothes."

"Well that ... doesn't really sound so bad?" Vic suggested, tentatively. He'd obviously been braced for worse.

"I mean, it _wasn't_ ," Li Ann admitted. "In some sense. I don't especially care if she sees me naked, not really, it just seemed rude of her to barge in on us like that. But she definitely did it to intimidate us. And it worked on Mac. Vic, when she left he was literally shaking."

"Why would she do that?" Vic asked.

"I don't _know_. I've been trying to figure it out, since last night. I mean, she's the one who invited me to _bring_ him to the Agency gym—and he's sure as hell never going back there now." Li Ann took a bite of bacon, but didn't really taste it. "So then in the car, he told me that she did the same thing on his first day of work—walked in on him naked, I mean. And apparently she told him that she does that with everybody, and he believed her—but she never did it to _me_." She looked up suddenly, frowning. "Did she do it to you?"

Vic shook his head. "I would've been pretty pissed off, if she had."

"And—coming into his _bedroom_ at _night_. I mean, that's really over the line, isn't it?"

Vic's expression darkened. "It's more than over the line. _Jesus_. If the Agency were less inherently fucked-up, she would've been fired for that."

"But it's not actually hard to believe, is it?" Li Ann went on. "That she did it? When you think about how she always treated him at work."

"That time she brought us to her sex club," Vic recalled, "she was all over him."

Li Ann ate a bite of egg. Also tasteless. "The thing is," she said, "I _like_ working for the Director. I like _her_! I mean, sometimes she's absolutely maddening. Frequently, actually. But sometimes spending time with her is actually _fun_. And I feel like she has a lot to teach me—and she values me, and respects me. So I'm feeling pretty conflicted about realizing that she's been systematically sexually harassing Mac, right in front of us, this whole time."

"Maybe ... she thought he didn't mind," Vic suggested, a bit doubtfully. "He is bisexual. And she's hot, and she knows it."

"She knows he's scared of her," Li Ann said. "She cultivated his fear on purpose. She used it, to get him to do what she wanted."

"Ah ... about that," Vic said. "Er. Li Ann. I want to talk to you about last night."

She eyed his sudden awkwardly-intense expression with suspicion. "What about it?"

"I don't like that you hurt Mac," he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I got him to eat. I got him out of bed. I _fixed_ him, Vic."

"Um, yeah. Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck. "But I really don't think that, um, threats of violence are a great way to deal with somebody who's suffering from depression."

"I didn't _threaten_ violence," Li Ann said mildly—although technically she had, in the car, but Vic hadn't been there to hear it—"I used a judicious application of pain to snap him out of his funk."

Vic nodded, and frowned. "You did. And it worked. And I'm grateful. But I don't want you to do it again."

Li Ann tightened her lips, thinking for a moment. And then she shook her head. "I'm not going to promise that. If he needs me to do it again, I will."

"Li Ann, we don't—" Vic swallowed, looking uncomfortable. "We don't use violence to modify the behaviour of the people we love. We just don't."

Li Ann watched him watching her, for a long moment after that. She took a sip of coffee. She thought about what she was going to say, and how she was going to say it.

"You didn't grow up in a triad gang," she said finally—not making it an accusation, or a revelation, just stating a plain fact. "Mac and I did."

"Yeah, so, I _get_ that your adolescence was fucked up," he said. "But you're out of it now. You left that life behind. You don't have to live by those rules anymore."

Li Ann shook her head. "You don't get it. You never will, you _can't_ , and that's wonderful, it's one of the reasons that you're so good for Mac and he loves you so much. _I_ love that about you, Vic. It's why I thought I wanted to marry you, back when I was running from that part of myself. You embody trust and honesty. You show us what it would be like to live without assuming that the world is hard, and brutal, and out to get us. But Mac and I can't actually live like that."

"Well ... maybe that's the point I'm trying to make here," Vic said. "The shit that you've gone through has left you with some baggage. You need to let me make this call. And I'm saying: don't hurt Mac again. That is not the right thing to do."

Li Ann lifted her chin, and glared at Vic. "And _I'm_ saying: if hurting him is the only way to help him, I'm going to do it. Are you going to try to stop me?"

She expected Vic to bristle—that seemed to be where they were headed, and she _was_ ready to face him down—but he just deflated.

"There's nothing I can do to stop you from treating him however you want," Vic said. "What am I going to do—make empty threats? You know I'd never hurt _you_. And I'd never try to come between you. I know how much you mean to each other, and I've seen how he falls apart every time you're gone. Just ... _please_ be careful, Li Ann. Bullying him into behaving the way you want him to is such an easy pattern. It worked for Michael; it worked for the Director. It blew up in _my_ face after Canada Day, remember? I didn't even think I was hurting him; I thought I was manipulating him into having sex with me _for his own good_ , and it was so, so wrong, and it nearly broke us forever."

Well, that was a sobering comparison. But Li Ann didn't think it was entirely justified. "I'm not manipulating him, and I'm _absolutely_ not forcing him into anything sexual," Li Ann pointed out. "I'm completely transparently promising to kick his fucking ass if he doesn't eat dinner, put on his socks, and get some exercise. It is _definitely_ for his own good, and I have absolutely no qualms about it."

Vic's forehead furrowed. "When you put it like that, it sounds very reasonable," he admitted. "Just—the idea of hurting him, _at all_ , makes me feel sick to my stomach."

Li Ann patted Vic's hand. " _You_ should never hurt him," she assured him. "It's better that way. But, feel free to use me as a threat if you have any trouble getting him out of bed this morning."

* * *

Li Ann didn't have an appointment with the Director that morning, but she sought her out anyway.

The Director wasn't in the briefing room proper. Li Ann eyed the stairs to the Director's private office, wondering if she dared go up.

Mac had been up there. He said it was a large but otherwise ordinary office—apart from the bank of security-camera monitors lining one wall.

Go up the steps uninvited ... knock on the Director's private door ... ?

She was in a mood to rebuke the Director; she didn't want to climb towards her like a supplicant.

Instead, Li Ann strode around the Director's desk and took a seat in the Director's high-backed leather chair.

She crossed her legs, and breathed through an adrenaline rush that would've been more appropriate for staring down the barrel of a gun.

Despite the provocation, the Director did not appear.

Li Ann tried the drawer from which the Director had pulled the whisky the previous day.

It opened smoothly.

Li Ann brought out the decanter, and two glasses. Set them on the desk's glossy surface.

Waited.

Five long minutes later, Li Ann heard the upstairs door opening and closing, followed by the Director's unhurried footsteps descending the concrete steps.

The Director was dressed in a demure, loose-fitting suit over a high-collared shirt today, and her black boots had low, chunky heels. It was an outfit that Li Ann herself would be comfortable in.

The Director stopped some distance short of the desk, crossed her arms, and regarded Li Ann with an ironic smile. "Well," she said. "Someone's feeling frisky today."

A beat of silence. _Your move, Li Ann._

Was Li Ann really going to attempt to give the _Director_ a dressing-down? From her own chair?

Not stone-cold sober, she wasn't.

She splashed an ounce or so of the whisky into the nearer glass and then slammed it down, neat.

Placed the glass delicately back down on the desk.

And found her voice.

"What the _hell_ was that about, last night?"

The Director arched an eyebrow. "You didn't appreciate the wardrobe assistance?"

"Mac's never going to come back here, now."

"Hm, that's a shame," the Director said, sounding largely unconcerned. "I hope he isn't giving up on the idea of exercise altogether."

"No, he said he'll find a gym—" Li Ann stopped short, and dug her fingernails into her palm. _Don't let her deflect you._ "Why did you break into his apartment?"

The Director frowned. "You'll have to be more specific."

"He said you came into his bedroom _at night_ while he was _sleeping_."

"Oh, that. Last _year_. If I recall correctly, I was annoyed with him. For something. Disobedience, probably."

"You _touched_ him."

The Director rolled her eyes. "Did he show you, on a teddy bear?"

"It's not a joke. You have power over him. You've been _intimidating_ him, sexually, and he didn't like it but he didn't have any way to get you to stop. It's an abuse of your position. I want to respect you, but I can't understand why you treated Mac that way."

The Director looked thoughtful, and then approached the desk. Li Ann thought for a moment that she was going to sit down in the other chair—the one normally reserved for her visitors—but instead, with a smooth little hop, the Director sat on the desk.

Now Li Ann had to crane her neck up to see her.

The Director tapped fingers against her knee. "Have you thought about what it means to run teams of agents who are hardened criminals—mostly killers?"

Li Ann shook her head.

And then, disliking the angle, decided it was time to yield her position. She stood up and went around the desk to the visitors' seat.

Without comment, the Director swung her legs gracefully over top of the desk and moved into her own chair. She settled into it with a tiny, satisfied wiggle, and then continued her thought. "A Director needs to constantly think about means of control. For any given agent: how do I keep them in line, how do I stop them from running away, how do I convince them to put in the necessary effort to do a very dangerous and demanding job which they may not have actually wanted in the first place? Particularly considering that it doesn't even pay well."

"The work we do is important," Li Ann said.

"I had Vic's loyalty because he believed in the work," the Director mused. "That's rare, among agents. I had yours because of your professionalism, at least initially; we made a deal, and you kept up your end of the bargain. Jackie and Paul, I hold onto through the very clear threat that their lives will be miserable and short if they betray me."

"This doesn't explain or justify your sexual harassment of Mac," Li Ann insisted.

"Ah, Mac. Well, you must admit, he does a very good impression of being a cocky, self-sure bastard who needs to be taken down a peg or two and kept on a short leash for his own good." The Director poured herself two fingers of scotch, and took a thoughtful sip. "When I found out about the nature of his past relationship with Michael, I backed off."

"I thought you backed off because he started dating Vic."

The Director granted Li Ann a wry tip of her glass. "Vic is a very attentive guard dog, it's true. The team dynamics shifted at that point. That's something to watch out for—it's good for a team to develop a close bond, but it can be awkward when they become more loyal to each other than to you."

Something about the way the Director had phrased that ... "Are you grooming me to become a Director?" Li Ann asked, abruptly.

The Director regarded her with a clear gaze. "Yes," she said. "Although you need _years_ more seasoning, first. Is that something that interests you?"

The ounce of whisky was hitting Li Ann's bloodstream. She felt a little dizzy. " _Yes_ ," she said, surprised at the strength of her own reaction.

But the Director had _thoroughly_ distracted her from her original question. "Why did you walk in on me and Mac last night?" she asked. Not accusingly this time—just a reasonable question from a trainee to a mentor.

The Director smirked. "Old habits die hard. And he's so _cute_ when he's flustered."

God, the Director was completely unrepentant about her treatment of Mac.

If Li Ann ever became a Director, she would do things differently.

"It would have been nice for me to have him as a training partner," Li Ann remarked, letting a little chill creep back into her tone. "If you hadn't scared him away permanently."

"Oh, I see your point," the Director said. "Well. Paul needs a training partner, too. How about you start meeting with him, say, three times a week? As your schedules permit."

Li Ann goggled at her. " _Paul_? I thought you said you kept the field agents away from the support staff."

"It's a bit late for that in this case; he already knows your face," the Director pointed out.

"I _killed_ his _lover_."

"Who was trying to murder you at the time; it was perfectly justified, and Paul has learned to see reason on that front."

Li Ann crossed her arms, and sighed.

It was pointless to try to resist the Director's machinations. She _knew_ that.

It was possible the Director had even driven Mac away on purpose in order to open the way for Li Ann to train with Paul. Although why she would do that, Li Ann really didn't know. "Okay," she conceded. "I'll work with him. But if he tries anything funny, I _will_ break something."

"I'd expect no less," the Director assured her, wearing a satisfied smile.

* * *

Li Ann joined Mac and Vic for a late supper at the Bouchard-Wongs' house that night. Vic had made a simple meal—just spaghetti with meat sauce, and a green salad on the side.

"How was your day?" Li Ann asked, as they took their first bites. "Mac, did you find a gym?"

He nodded. "We went around to a lot of places, but yeah, I found one that I liked in Agincourt. I signed up."

"I still think you should've joined the Y along with me," Vic said, wrinkling his nose. "It's closer. And your place seemed a little sketchy, frankly."

Mac smirked. "You're just saying that because of the desk guy's tattoos. Anyway, this place has fighting. The Y doesn't have fighting."

Li Ann looked at Vic. "You got a gym membership too?"

"It seemed like a good idea," Vic said. "You're the one who said I was getting fat."

"It wasn't a criticism," Li Ann assured him. "I just think civilian life agrees with you."

Mac grinned and patted Vic's belly. "She likes a man with some meat on his bones," he explained. "She always says I'm too skinny."

"Because you _are_ ," Li Ann said sternly. But she was really happy to see that he was eating well tonight. She'd done the right thing, yesterday.

"How was your day?" Vic asked her.

She groaned. "Long. Hard. I had to visit _two_ maximum-security prisons. The Director's got me pulling together a whole new team for her, and she wants it by Friday."

"She's looking to expand?" Mac asked warily.

"She says it's a one-time gig," Li Ann said. "I don't know what the job is—she says I don't need to know. Something that requires some muscle, a stunt driver, a computer hacker, an electrician, and a _makeup artist_ by Friday."

"New Year's Eve?" Vic raised an eyebrow. "Maybe she's planning a heist. A casino job?"

Mac snorted a laugh at that. But then he frowned. "What do you mean, though, a one-time thing? They're not actually going to become agents? How does that work?"

Li Ann shrugged. "When you think about it, we never found out very much about how the Agency worked. We never even met any other agents."

"Except for at the annual Agency Awards," Vic pointed out. "That was always a weird, weird party."

"Hey, what about the _other_ team?" Mac said. "The one Vic walked in on one time, that looked like us?"

Vic's eyes went distant. "Oh man, I'd forgotten all about that. The Director claimed I'd imagined the whole thing. And then just when I was starting to think that I really was going crazy, she sort of obliquely confirmed their existence. Only we never heard anything else about them after that."

Mac turned to Li Ann, wide-eyed. "You should ask her about them! You're on the inside now, right? Maybe she'll finally tell you what was up. Give us all some closure."

"I'm not sure I'm in a position to seek confidences from the Director right now," Li Ann said, frowning thoughtfully at the strand of spaghetti she was twirling around her fork. "I tried to _chastise_ her this morning."

"You what?" Mac said.

Vic raised an eyebrow.

"I called her out for walking in on us last night," Li Ann said. "I asked her what she'd been thinking."

"How did _that_ go?" Mac asked, looking slightly appalled.

Li Ann shrugged. "Not particularly well. And I confronted her about what you told me—about her coming to you in the night that one time."

Mac winced. "I haven't told Vic about that," he said in Cantonese.

"I told him this morning," Li Ann said, sticking with English.

"Um, yeah," Vic said with an uneasy look between them. "I decided not to bring it up."

"Good instinct," Mac said quickly, patting Vic's shoulder. "There's no point. It happened a long time ago."

"What did she say?" Vic asked.

"She handed me some vague justifications about how hard it is to manage field agents. And she assigned me to start training with Paul." Li Ann scowled, and stabbed at her pasta.

Vic goggled. "Paul-who-tried-to- _kill_ -you? Oh, no. _Hell_ no. She can't do that. I'll—" He trailed off at Li Ann's glare.

"Don't you dare try to white-knight _me_ , Victor Mansfield. I can take care of myself."

"She can, don't worry," Mac murmured, squeezing Vic's arm. He did give Li Ann a worried look, though. "You _will_ be careful. Right?"

Li Ann sighed. "Obviously."


	7. Chapter 7

Surprisingly, over the next few weeks, Li Ann's days settled into routine.

New Year's Eve passed quietly. She spent it at the Bouchard-Wongs' house with Mac and Vic, with candles and stacks of canned food close to hand just in case civilization ended at midnight.

"A computer hacker," Vic mused. "Maybe the job had something to do with the Y2K bug?"

Li Ann never did find out what the Director had wanted her slapped-together team to do on New Year's eve—but civilization did not, in fact, end, so presumably everything went well.

After the New Year's job, recruitment dropped down to what seemed like a reasonable, sustainable pace. Instead of demanding new agents on tight deadlines, the Director had her scoping out possibilities 'just in case'. As long as Li Ann identified one potential agent every couple of weeks, the Director was content.

Not that Li Ann saw the Director very much in that period. She got her instructions through Dobrinsky; she only saw the Director in passing a couple of times. She had no chance to try to get any new information about the Agency's inner workings from her.

Training with Paul turned out to be only mildly unpleasant. He never tried to engage her in conversation; she returned the favour. At most, they briefly discussed sequences of moves that they wanted to practice.

The night after their first session, Vic got upset about a bruise on her arm. He saw it when she stripped down to climb into bed with him and Mac.

"What's that from?" he asked, as though he were a cop and she were a domestic abuse victim.

"Oh." Li Ann grimaced, and rubbed at the bruise. "That's from sparring with Paul."

"Okay, that's it, this can't happen," Vic said, sitting up straight and looking agitated. "The Director can't keep putting you in a room with a man who wants to kill you."

"Vic, I appreciate your concern, but it's fine," Li Ann said.

Actually, his concern annoyed her. She appreciated Vic's protectiveness when it was directed towards Mac, since Mac obviously needed it—but when he turned it on her, it made her hackles go up.

"He _hurt_ you," Vic insisted. "He's dangerous. He trained with Michael."

"So did I," Li Ann pointed out. "So did Mac."

Mac shifted, then; the mildly-amused expression he'd been wearing throughout the exchange got a little more brittle. "Don't overreact, Vic," he said. "It's normal to get a little banged-up when you're sparring. Michael and I gave each other lots of bruises over the years."

Vic winced, and Li Ann realized that he must have been pretty upset to have brought up Michael in the first place, in front of Mac.

She decided she'd better defuse the situation, by assuaging Vic's concerns more carefully. Even if she _was_ pissed off at his basic assumption that he had any role in protecting her. "Paul needs to learn better control," she said. "But I can handle him. And by the way, I was never alone with him—Jackie was in the gym at the same time, doing her own workout. I'm sure she was there on the Director's orders."

"Okay," Vic conceded, lying back down. He still looked worried, though. "But I don't like this."

* * *

Geneviève and Huang returned with Taylor after New Year's, so the guys' life fell into a steady routine, too.

Mac went to his new gym for an hour every morning—six days a week, with the exception being Sundays when he went to the meditation centre instead. Vic reported this to Li Ann with an air of great relief. Whether it was the exercise, the discipline, or the knowledge that Li Ann was around to kick his ass as needed, Mac didn't spend any more days in bed. He seemed to be doing okay.

Li Ann didn't visit the guys every day, but she never stayed away for more than a day at a time. And she slept in their bed at least two or three nights a week. She knew that this wasn't a relationship that made sense according to any standard models, but she loved curling up next to Mac; it made her feel whole.

She saw Taylor whenever she saw the guys, of course. Taylor was thriving, in a world full of constant stimulation and endless opportunities for play. She quickly got over her shyness with Li Ann, and before long Li Ann was handling bath time several nights a week in order to give Mac and Vic a little break.

Vic had made a rueful confession to Li Ann one night in mid-January, over beers in the Bouchard-Wongs' kitchen while Mac was putting Taylor to sleep: even though Mac was over his depression and interested in sex again, they still almost never had time to _do_ it. Now that Mac was getting up at six in the morning to go to the gym, he usually couldn't manage to wake up again after putting Taylor to bed at eight in the evening. Vic would rouse him just enough to tug him over to their own bed and tuck him in. Mac had needed a lot of sleep ever since the fire. So—bath time. Li Ann got to bond with Taylor over splashes and bubble beards, and Mac and Vic had twenty minutes three times a week to make love.

Li Ann started to get to know Geneviève and Huang a little better, too. She felt very awkward and stiff with them at first, and the feeling was obviously mutual, but they all made an effort to get past it. On the nights that Huang made dinner and all six of them ate together, Geneviève started inviting Li Ann into the kitchen afterwards to join her in drinking a glass of white wine and washing the dishes.

"Can I ask you how was your day at work?" Geneviève asked, the first night, handing Li Ann a wineglass to dry. They'd already loaded the dishwasher; now they were dealing with the over-sized and delicate items.

"Ah ... well, not really," Li Ann said. "I mean, it was fine. It's interesting. I can't talk about it, though." Geneviève knew about the Agency in broad strokes, but Li Ann knew better than to reveal any additional details. "Can I ask you about yours?"

Geneviève laughed. "Same situation, I'm afraid. So, given that we can't talk about our top-secret jobs ... I suppose we might as well gossip about our family?"

Li Ann blinked, caught off-guard by the phrase 'our family'. _Our._ "You mean Taylor?"

"You look so much like her," Geneviève said musingly, and took a sip of wine. "But I meant Mac, really. He seems much better, since we got back from Quebec. I was wondering if you knew anything about that."

"Did Mac say anything to you?" Li Ann asked cautiously. "Or Vic?"

"Men," Geneviève said dismissively, and started washing a muffin tin. "They have no idea how to talk about their feelings."

Li Ann frowned, and crossed her arms. "I don't think that's their problem, exactly." She wasn't sure how to feel about Geneviève reaching for implicit assumptions about their shared womanhood. The only woman Li Ann had ever really had heart-to-heart talks with before now was the Director. "Vic is pretty protective of Mac. He'd be cautious about sharing information."

Geneviève shrugged. "Yes, I certainly picked up on that. The day we negotiated this whole arrangement, Vic was open about Mac's past struggles, but in December he was continually covering for him. Huang and I decided not to say anything, as long as Vic was handling Taylor's care adequately on his own—which he certainly was—but frankly we were starting to wonder if Mac was unhappy about having accepted this position."

"No, he's definitely happy to be here," Li Ann assured her. "He was just having some adjustment problems. I think he's found his feet now, though."

* * *

When the Lunar New Year arrived, Huang invited Li Ann, Mac and Vic along to the party his family was having at a local Chinese restaurant.

This necessitated another 'let's get our background stories straight' planning session. Remembering their mistake in not including Ben in the last one, they made sure to get Geneviève and Huang involved.

"I feel like a secret agent," Geneviève said, bemusedly, from her perch on the footstool in front of the armchair.

"Why can't we just tell my family the truth?" Huang asked. He was on the armchair, giving Geneviève a shoulder rub.

"Because I _am_ a secret agent," Li Ann pointed out, "and we're not allowed to tell anybody that." She and Vic were on the couch.

"I don't like telling lies," Huang said, frowning. "I'm not any good at it."

Mac looked up from the floor, where he was helping Taylor with a wooden puzzle. "Isn't your job top-secret too?"

"We can tell people what we do, in general terms," Geneviève said. "With regards to the details, it's enough to say that what we do is classified."

"Nobody really wants to hear about the math, anyway," Huang added a little ruefully.

"We told our friends Casey and Rebekah that Li Ann works for an adoption agency now," Vic said. "Interviewing prospective parents."

Li Ann nodded. "I cleared the story with the Director." Belatedly, but the Director hadn't had any problems with it. "She's shored it up for me a little—I have business cards now, in case anyone asks me about it, and if anyone calls the number they'll get referred on to a real adoption agency."

"So you're going to be open with your family about Mac and Li Ann being the birth parents?" Vic asked Huang.

"My parents and my brother and sister already know," Huang said. "I told them after we hired you. They just haven't met any of you yet."

"What about our background?" Li Ann asked. "There's a lot there we really can't talk about."

"Couldn't we just kinda go easy on the background stuff?" Vic asked. "It's not like Huang's family's going to be _interrogating_ us."

"You haven't met my mother," Huang said, wryly.

"They will be interested in getting to know you," Geneviève confirmed. "Especially since Mac and Li Ann are from Hong Kong."

Li Ann glanced down at Mac. "We definitely can't mention the Tangs."

"No triad stuff, check," Mac said, and nudged Taylor's pudgy little hands so that the duck she was holding would rotate properly into position. Taylor grinned, clapped for herself, and reached for the cow.

"We'll just say we were fostered together," Li Ann told him. "Like the story you originally told Ben."

"Mac told Ben a lot of things," Vic pointed out, looking a little worried. "Some of that background stuff is ... maybe a bit heavy for a family party?"

"We can make something else up if you want," Mac said. "My parents died in a boating accident or whatever."

"Your father's not even dead," Vic pointed out.

"I usually say that he is, though," Mac shrugged.

"You don't need to make up lies," Geneviève said, with a glance back up at Huang. "Apart from your involvement in the triads, there's nothing about your pre-Agency lives that you absolutely _can't_ reveal. There might be a lot there that you'd prefer not to talk about, and that's fair. You can _tell_ Huang's family that you don't want to talk about it. Obviously, for you to have ended up in foster care, some bad things had to have happened. Even Huang's mother has enough social graces not to push for details that obviously make you uncomfortable."

Huang made a slightly dubious noise.

"Huang's father will rein her in," Geneviève corrected herself. "Signal for help if you need it."

"Ah," Vic said, "speaking of kids ending up in care ... have you all thought about why you're going to say that Li Ann and Mac gave Taylor up for adoption in the first place?"

Everyone turned towards him, with a variety of questioning looks.

"I mean, people give kids up because they can't raise them," Vic said. "Or because they have no choice. It's really not obvious how that would apply here, the way we're building our story."

"I never wanted a child," Li Ann said, before she'd thought about it.

"Is that what you're going to tell the Wong family?" Vic asked. "That you just didn't want her?"

"Ah..." Li Ann felt a flush rising in her cheeks. She looked down at Taylor, who was chortling happily over her success with the cow. Mac met Li Ann's eyes, looking worried. "No," she said.

"So what's the story?" Vic insisted. "It has to make sense that you gave her up. And it has to make sense that you're involved in her life _now_ , but that neither one of you has any designs on reclaiming your role as her _parents_. We don't want Huang's family to think that there's any danger of you retroactively contesting the adoption."

"I never would," Li Ann said quickly, to Geneviève and Huang—because they both looked intensely troubled by Vic's line of thinking. "I am so grateful that the Director brought her to you."

"Me too," Mac added earnestly. "Look, I love her, but I'd be a terrible parent. I guess we can tell Huang's family what a giant fuck-up I am, if we have to, so they won't worry."

"Er," Vic winced, "Maybe that's not the go-to plan?"

"My preference would be to respect your privacy," Geneviève added delicately, "with respect to the mental health issues. Particularly in the context of a big family party."

Li Ann thought they were right, since most of Mac's damage that made him not a suitable parent—and her own, for that matter—had to do with the parts of their lives that they weren't planning to talk about. "I have an idea," she said. "We'll say we were in prison."

"I thought we'd agreed _not_ to mention the triads?" Geneviève said.

Li Ann shook her head. "As political dissidents. Protesting the Communist government."

Mac frowned. "The timeline doesn't work. Taylor was born nearly three months before the handover. And I'm not sure we come across as very political."

"There were lots of demonstrations before July 1st," Li Ann assured him. "So ... say we went to one, and got in a fight with the cops."

" _That_ sounds like something I'd do," Mac agreed.

"How did you get out of Hong Kong, then?" Vic asked. "With criminal records, immigration isn't so easy."

"I pulled strings for them," Geneviève volunteered. "Well. The family does know that I have mysterious government connections."

"So we're forever in your debt," Li Ann concluded. "Perfect. That works."

* * *

Huang's family had rented the whole top floor of a large Chinese restaurant.

He had a _lot_ of family, it turned out.

His parents had moved to Canada with their three kids in 1967. His grandparents and four of his uncles had followed suit later, and the uncles had brought their own families. In Huang's generation, he had a brother and a sister and a tidy dozen cousins—most of whom were now married with children and in-laws of their own. Several more relatives had just arrived in Canada recently, having made the decision to leave Hong Kong in advance of the handover, or even slightly afterwards. When Li Ann and the others arrived at the restaurant, the party was already in full swing, and there had to be nearly a hundred people in the room.

Taylor, as soon as she was released from her bulky winter snowsuit, ran gleefully for the dance floor, where a bunch of other kids were running around.

The rest of them hung up their coats, and then Huang beckoned them through the throngs. "Li Ann, Mac," he said, "I'd like you to meet my parents."

The smiling couple greeted Li Ann and Mac politely. They were both petite, and healthy-looking for people in their late seventies. "We're so happy to meet you at last!" Huang's mom said, beaming at them. "Huang's right, Taylor looks just like you. It's nice that she will have the chance to know where she comes from."

"And this is Vic," Huang continued.

"Hi," Vic said, transitioning from an awkward little wave to a handshake when Huang's mom reached for him.

"Yes, Huang explained the relationship," Huang's mom said. "You should talk to Jeannie's son Donald later, he's gay too! And he brought his boyfriend. Steve is _not_ happy about it, but I think it's sweet."

"Uh, thanks Mrs. Wong," Vic said, clearly uncertain of an appropriate response.

Huang extricated them from his parents, at that point, and led them onward to meet some siblings and cousins.

"Shit," Mac whispered to Li Ann as they walked, "is it too late to change our story? We're not raising Taylor together because I'm _gay_."

Li Ann face-palmed, briefly. "Why didn't we think of that?"

"Not nearly convoluted enough," Vic muttered under his breath.

* * *

Li Ann quickly lost track of who was who as she was introduced to cousin after cousin.

She had a respite during the sit-down part of the banquet, seated as she was between Mac and Geneviève. They were sharing a table with Huang's siblings, nieces and nephews. Huang's parents were at another table, with the older generation.

They didn't have to pull out any of their cover stories; Huang's siblings had only a cursory interest in Li Ann, Mac or Vic. There were a lot of small children at the table, and all of the adults were pretty occupied in dealing with the kids, and talking about them.

"Are you okay?" Mac asked her, quietly, after a while.

"Hm? Yes," Li Ann said, setting her chopsticks down on the holder. She reached for her teacup. "Everything's delicious," she added.

"You seem a little overwhelmed," Mac said.

"It's a lot of family, isn't it?" she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Isn't it great?"

"It's great that Taylor's got this," she said. "I sort of want to hide in a corner, though."

"You've been doing fine," Mac said.

"I've handed out _all_ my business cards," Li Ann said. "People kept asking for them. They can't all want to adopt children, can they?"

"Um, I think they were just being polite," Mac said. "You didn't have to bring it up every time."

"It seemed like the safest thing to talk about," Li Ann said. "Are we actually ditching the prison story?"

"No, I already told it to a couple of second cousins," Mac said. "Oh, FYI: you saw me go down under a hail of nightsticks and rubber bullets, somebody told you they saw me getting carried away in a body bag, and you thought I was dead for a year and a half. Also, prison food sucked under the British but it sucked even _more_ under the Chinese. That last part is true, by the way. You're lucky you got out before the handover."

Li Ann winced. "Where was Vic while you were telling this story?" She would've thought that Vic could've managed to forestall some of the embellishments. Even if Mac's version was bringing them closer to the truth—the second darkest period of her life wasn't a truth that she wanted to spin into an anecdote at a party.

"Right beside me," Mac said. "But he doesn't speak Cantonese."

"Maybe you should stick with English, then," Li Ann suggested. "So he doesn't feel left out." _And so that he can manage you better,_ she did not add, but Mac's eye-roll told her he'd caught her meaning.

"I'll be good," he promised. "I want Huang's family to _like_ me."

* * *

After the feast, the children got their red envelopes of money and then the DJ brought up the volume of the music and a disco ball started spinning over the dance floor.

Li Ann had brought an envelope for Taylor—she'd bought it downtown a few days ago in preparation. She'd been completely unsure how much to put in it, though. As a child in Canton province, she'd been delighted to receive a few coins totalling less than one yuan. As the pampered only daughter of the Tang godfather, she'd received gifts of tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars.

Finally she'd decided on five crisp twenties. She handed the envelope to Taylor, who received it with a shy giggle, but then she made sure that it got passed on to Geneviève.

"Thank you," Geneviève smiled, tucking it into her purse.

There was a cash bar. Li Ann got herself a Tsingtao to nurse and attempted to mingle.

"Who are you?" asked a fashionably dressed man about her own age, coming up alongside her. "Family, or plus-one?"

"Ah..." Li Ann realized that she'd never introduced _herself_ yet. Before the dinner, Huang had been doing that part. But now he was on the dance floor with Taylor. "Family," she said. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" the man repeated, looking a little puzzled. "You are or you aren't."

"I'm Huang and Geneviève's daughter's biological mother," she clarified. Well, it _was_ how Huang had been introducing her. It just sounded stranger when he wasn't standing next to her.

"Oh!" the guy said, his eyes lighting up. "That's you! _Sort of_. I get it now. Hey, is it true you did time in a Hong Kong prison?"

"Ah, yes," Li Ann said, thoroughly regretting having come up with the idea for that story. "I'd rather not talk about it. It wasn't a good time in my life."

"Was it like in the movies, though?" the guy asked, undeterred. "Did anybody try to shank you in the exercise yard?"

"Here, let me show you something," Li Ann said sweetly. "Put down your drink."

Looking curious, the guy put his glass on the nearest table. Li Ann did the same with her beer.

"All right, try to grab me from behind," she said.

"Uh, okay," the guy said, sounding fairly enthusiastic about the prospect.

She felt him pressing up against her, and he wrapped his arms around her upper body. "Like this?" he asked. She could feel the bulge of his cock bumping against her buttocks, which wasn't a part of this plan that she'd really thought through. Oh well.

"Perfect," she said, and flipped him over her shoulder.

He hit the floor flat, arms and legs splayed. She was careful not to let him bump his head.

"Gerk!" he yelped, high-pitched.

"No," she said, leaning over him. "Nobody shanked me in the exercise yard."

She turned fast at the sound of running footsteps approaching, but it was just Vic.

"Li Ann," he said in a kind of strangled voice. "What are you doing?"

The guy was sitting up, looking a little dazed. "I'm okay," he said. "That was, uh, wow."

Li Ann looked at Vic's face, and gave a rueful shrug. "Sorry," she said. "I'm kind of bad at small talk."

"And here I thought _Mac_ was the one I had to watch," Vic said under his breath. He urged her away through the tables with a light hand at the small of her back. She grabbed her Tsingtao and tipped it to the fallen guy as she left. He watched her go, wide-eyed.

"Where is Mac?" Li Ann asked.

"He's been talking to Huang's grandmother for the past twenty minutes," Vic said. "About what, I don't know. She doesn't speak a word of English."

Li Ann glanced over and saw Mac at one of the central tables, sitting next to a wizened old lady in a wheelchair. She was talking and gesturing, and he was nodding along in rapt attention.

"Okay, he's probably fine there," she said.

Vic gave her beer a leery look. "How much have you had, Li Ann?"

"This is my first one," she said, sloshing it to demonstrate that it was still more than half full. "Sorry, I'm not drunk, just a little ... overstimulated."

"Yeah, I know parties aren't really your thing."

"It's not that," Li Ann said. "Or not _only_ that. This is the first time I've celebrated the Lunar New Year in Canada. It's bringing up a lot of memories."

"Okay," Vic said, sounding a little wary. "Do you want to sit down?"

"Maybe I'll get some air, actually," Li Ann said. "Do you know where people are going to smoke?"

"There's a balcony, you just have to go down the hall," Vic said. "You don't smoke, though."

"No," Li Ann said. "I just need to get out of the room."

She told him that he didn't need to come with her, but he glanced back at the place where she'd flipped the guy, and said that he definitely did.

They grabbed their coats, and headed out to the balcony. It was long and wide—in the warmer months, there would be tables on it. A few small clusters of smokers huddled together, chatting. They waved at Li Ann and Vic. Vic waved back, friendly, but drew Li Ann into a more solitary corner, putting them upwind of the smokers.

Li Ann took a cautious breath of the sharp, cold air. "Good," she said. "This is nothing like Hong Kong."

"So, memories, huh," Vic said neutrally. "Wanna talk about it?"

Li Ann shrugged. She wasn't sure. "Mac's probably going to have a bad night tonight," she said. "Be ready for it."

"He seems okay," Vic said, with a cautious, pointless glance back towards the ballroom. The corner of the building was in the way; they couldn't even see a window. "You seem on edge."

Li Ann looked off over the edge of the balcony. They were facing a road; traffic was light, but steady. "When I was a kid," she said, "I loved the New Year's celebrations."

"A kid..." Vic repeated. "With the Tangs, you mean?"

She shook her head. "Before. With my real family." She never called them that. It wasn't the right word. "My birth family," she corrected herself.

"Okay..." Vic said softly, and waited for her to continue.

She never talked about this.

She wasn't sure she wanted to.

"We were poor," she said, "but we weren't always starving. That last year was so bad, but before that ... well, it was always bad, actually. But at New Year's everything was different. It was the one time we got to eat as much as we wanted, _so_ many dumplings, with meat in them even. And we got money—not much, but it was the only money I ever got, so it seemed like a fortune. My parents would give us each an envelope, we'd get so excited..." She swallowed. "It's a _happy_ memory, Vic."

"Um ... that's good?" he ventured, tentatively.

She shook her head, and clenched the balcony railing with both fists. "I don't _want_ to have happy memories about my family," she said, staring fiercely down at the passing cars.

They blurred in her vision. A couple of tears tracked down her cheek, warm for a moment and then icy cold as the wind hit them.

"Li Ann," Vic whispered, and she felt his arms around her. Hugging her close. "I'm so sorry."

She shivered, and didn't say anything else.

They stayed out there for a long time.


	8. Chapter 8

One day in early February, the week after the Lunar New Year party, Li Ann was having dinner with just Mac, Vic, and Taylor. Geneviève and Huang were having one of their late evenings at work.

"Hey, by the way," Mac said following a lull in their conversation, "there's this gang with ties to Hong Kong operating out of the gym I'm going to."

" _What_!?" Vic lowered his fork with a piece of roast beef still on it, and stared at Mac. "Since when?"

"Oh, I figured it out on like the second day," Mac said, sounding unconcerned. "Don't worry, I never let on that I knew. But, Li Ann—I overheard a guy talking on the phone this morning. They've got some kind of shipment coming in on Saturday, on the seven-thirty flight from Hong Kong. Might be worth looking into. I thought you could pass on the word to somebody at the Agency."

"Thanks," Li Ann said mildly. "I will." She kept an eye on Vic, though, because he looked like he was having some trouble with this revelation.

Vic was still wide-eyed. "Mac, you have to stop going to that gym!"

"Why?" Mac asked.

"Uh, because you just said there's a _gang_ presence."

"Seriously, it's nothing to worry about," Mac said. "I'm not getting involved."

"When have you _ever_ not gotten involved in trouble?" Vic groaned, and sank down a little in his chair. "I can't _believe_ this."

Taylor laughed, and ran her fingers through her mashed potatoes.

"I'm not hanging out with any of the guys who are into that side of things, I promise," Mac said. "I have _one_ guy I usually spar with, and he's oblivious, he's just a guy from the neighbourhood who likes getting his cardio in before work. I've been teaching him some moves. He says he really likes working with me. I'm not going to ditch him."

"Of course he likes working with you," Vic said, sounding strained. "You're _fantastic_. Everybody likes you. That's the problem. How long before the hoods from the gang decide they like you too?"

Mac shook his head. "Not gonna happen. Don't worry."

Vic just winced. "Mac, you're working out at their gym and you're a great fighter. They're _going_ to try to recruit you. And they're not necessarily going to take an easy 'no'."

Taylor started sucking noisily on her empty sippy cup. The guys seemed pretty distracted, so Li Ann took it upon herself to refill it from the milk jug on the table.

"I swear, you _really_ don't have to worry about that," Mac was saying again. "Look. First of all, I told you—it's a Hong Kong gang. And if you haven't noticed, I'm white."

"That didn't stop the Tangs from taking you in."

"That was _in_ Hong Kong. It's a little different. And the godfather and Michael forced everyone to accept me—which, by the way, did not go over entirely well in all quarters." Mac shrugged. "Anyway, I haven't been taking any chances. I never let on at the gym that I speak Cantonese. And I've been playing up the gay-nanny-with-asthma thing."

Vic frowned. "Sorry, the _what_ thing?"

"Just to make absolutely sure I don't ping anybody as a possible recruit. I put one of Taylor's finger-paintings in my locker. I talk a lot about how hot my boyfriend is." Mac grinned, and then shrugged. "And I let everybody see me using my inhaler before I fight. So, seriously, don't _worry_. I'm not going to get in any trouble."

"Okay." Vic still looked uneasy, but he did at least relax his shoulders a bit. "I guess that could do the trick. As long as it doesn't get you _beat up_." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm a little ... surprised, actually. That you're comfortable letting them see you that way. Especially with the inhaler."

Li Ann privately agreed. Mac had a tendency to get himself in trouble because he _hated_ showing weakness. It was a little hard to imagine him openly displaying his disability in front of men who must remind him of the Tang soldiers they'd grown up around.

But Mac shrugged again. "It's like being undercover. You have to pick a character, and fill in the details."

Vic gave him a funny look. "It's not a cover, Mac. It's your actual life. You know that, right?"

"Well..."

"Come on, Mac," Vic said, sounding a little unbalanced. "This is our _real life_. Please tell me that's not ambiguous to you."

"It's not the same for you," Mac said. "The only thing you have to lie about is the seven-year gap in your resumé where you worked for the Agency. I have to lie about my entire life, minus the past two months."

That stopped Vic. "Jesus," he said, after a moment. "I hadn't really thought about that."

"It's okay," Mac said. "I'm a good liar."

Vic was clearly finding this line of conversation distressing, and Mac seemed like he was on the verge of descending into one of his darker moods. So Li Ann jumped in. "We get to be honest with Ben," she pointed out. "And Geneviève and Huang. And each other."

"That's ... not a lot of people," Vic said.

Mac looked at him. "Have you ever had more friends than that? Real ones, that you could trust?"

"... No," Vic admitted after an awkward pause. "Not even that many."

"Well then," Mac said, and leaned over to kiss Vic's cheek. "We're doing okay."

* * *

Li Ann and Vic talked about it some more after Taylor and Mac had been tucked into their respective beds.

"You've got to help me talk him out of going back to that gym," Vic said.

They were in the sitting room in the nanny suite. Li Ann had made them a pot of tea, which sat steaming on the coffee table. They were at opposite ends of the couch.

"I don't think it's that simple," Li Ann said. "Remember what he was like before he started going there? That place really saved him."

"He can go to a _different_ gym."

"I'm not so sure about that." Li Ann poured two cups of tea, and blew on hers. "If he could get what he needed from a regular gym, he would have joined the Y with you. He _likes_ doing things with you."

Vic shook his head. "We can't work out together anyway—we have to take turns looking after Taylor."

"Okay, but isn't the Y a lot closer? And didn't you guys tell me that you spent a whole _day_ going around and looking at gyms before he found this place?"

"Yeah." Vic sighed. "He didn't like any of the other ones. And when we walked in the door of this one, he just lit right up."

"Because it felt _right_ to him. It felt like home."

Vic grimaced. "Sure, because it's run by a fucking _triad_."

"Don't exaggerate, Vic," Li Ann said primly, and sipped at her tea. "We don't know that it's a triad. It might just be a street gang."

Vic stared at her balefully. "Is that meant to be comforting?"

"Not really," Li Ann admitted. "Okay. Look. It really sounds like he's got this under control, Vic. The gym is open to the public, they sell memberships to anyone who walks in off the street. They want to look legit. I think Mac's right—they're not going to look at him twice. Anyway, he's been there for over a month now with no problems, right?"

"Except he just ratted out their mysterious shipment to law enforcement," Vic pointed out acerbically. " _That's_ the kind of thing that might draw their attention."

Li Ann acknowledged that with a shrug. "I guess that whole undercover-operative habit is hard to break," she mused, a little flippantly.

And then the penny dropped.

"Oh, _shit_ ," she said. " _Shit._ No. She couldn't have. It's too—oh my god. It's _exactly_ the kind of thing she'd do, isn't it?"

Vic was staring at her. "What's wrong, Li Ann? What are you talking about?"

Li Ann shook her head, trying to get her racing thoughts organized enough to communicate. "Do you remember the Massenhoven case?"

Vic shook his head. "Sorry, there have been a lot of cases."

"It was right at the end of Mac's probation. Just after the Director moved us to Toronto. She pretended to fire Mac. Well, she _told_ him he was fired. Only the last thing she did before he walked out the door was she threw a restaurant menu in the garbage in front of him, knowing he'd pick it up and go to the restaurant and get involved with the owner and uncover the conspiracy that we'd been _trying_ to investigate in the first place."

Vic furrowed his brow. "Right, I remember—Kathy Chao was the restaurant owner. The case turned out to be about a secret list of Chinese dissidents." And then he obviously caught up with her line of thinking, because he sat up straight and stared at her. " _No_. You think this is the same thing?" He shook his head—kept shaking it, like he was trying to convince himself. "It fucking _can't_ be. He got retired from the Agency because he was _injured_. And that was three _months_ ago. Her plans are convoluted sometimes, but there's no way she could have planned this."

"She told me after Christmas to get him to start training again," Li Ann pointed out. "And then she invited me to bring him to the Agency, but she immediately pushed him away. She even _asked_ me, later, if he'd found a gym."

"But how the _hell_ could she have known that he'd go to _that_ one?" Vic asked, plaintively.

"She knows _him_."

"Even if she figured he'd gravitate towards a gym with Hong Kong connections, it's not like that's the only one in the city."

"Well, it's not like he was going to drive all the way to Chinatown from North York every day. But it's a pretty short trip from here to Agincourt." The population of Agincourt was nearly fifty percent Chinese—the highest of any Toronto neighbourhood. "He went straight there when he was looking for a gym, didn't he?"

"As soon as he'd rejected the three closest to here, yeah." Vic frowned. "But we went to like six different gyms in Agincourt."

"And what were the other ones like?"

Vic scratched his chin. "Old people doing tai chi ... university students on stairmasters..."

"Right. So he kept looking, until he found the one that he liked."

"Which not-so-coincidentally also has ties to Hong Kong organized crime. _Fuck._ " Vic stared at his untouched cup of tea. "Should we _tell_ him?"

"I really don't know," Li Ann confessed. "I'm not sure if telling him would get him out of it, or just entangle him even deeper. Let me talk to the Director tomorrow, and see what she has to say for herself. Then we'll decide together."

* * *

Li Ann left a message that she needed to see the Director. Dobrinsky came and fetched her near the end of the day.

The Director was seated at her desk, hair up and glasses on. She was typing at her computer. At Li Ann's arrival, she looked up. "Yes?"

Li Ann plunked herself into the chair across from the desk, and leaned forward. "Is Mac secretly still working for you?"

The Director sat up straight with a faint smile. "Ah. You have some intelligence to pass on? From the gym, perhaps?"

Well, there went any last hope that Li Ann and Vic were just being paranoid. "There's something coming in on the seven-thirty flight from Hong Kong, on Saturday," Li Ann said. Then she glared at the Director. "This isn't right. He's supposed to be retired."

"And he is," the Director assured her. "I do appreciate his conscientious citizenship, though, in bringing this matter to my attention." She turned her gaze back to her computer. "Thank you," she added absently, flipping Li Ann a vague wave good-bye.

Li Ann wasn't done. "How could you _do_ this to him?"

"Do? I didn't do anything," the Director said. "All right, perhaps I _nudged_. You know my motto: waste not, want not."

Li Ann narrowed her eyes. "I thought your motto was 'the end justifies the means'."

"Yes, well, that too."

"We're not your puppets."

"Oh, Li Ann," the Director murmured, looking bemused. "And here I thought your training was coming along so well."

"You _have_ agents," Li Ann pointed out, not even trying to hide her frustration. " _Lots_ of them, it turns out. And if you need more, I can get you more! So why did you have to get Mac involved?"

The Director sat back, and took off her reading glasses. "Honestly? I didn't actually know that anything was happening at that gym—I had nothing more than a vague suspicion. To have Paul come all the way out from downtown to investigate the place on such weak intel—maybe needing to make the trip several times—well, it might have been just a colossal waste of cab fare. Anyway, the ploy only worked because it served Mac's needs too. He is doing better now, I take it?"

"He is," Li Ann admitted, deflating a little. "So much better."

"Don't worry, I have no intention of getting him any more deeply involved," the Director said. "Now that I know that something's really going down, I'll send an active agent in."

* * *

"I don't think we should tell him," Li Ann said.

She'd seized the opportunity for a quick private conference with Vic before supper. Mac was in the kitchen with Taylor and Huang, and Geneviève wasn't home yet.

Vic shook his head. "So we're just gonna _let_ the Director manipulate him?"

"What's done is done," Li Ann said. "She got what she wanted out of it. If we tell him now, he's just going to feel even more violated."

"Okay," Vic said. "I see your point. But I still don't like it—especially with him still going to that fucking sketchy gym."

"Mac can take care of himself," Li Ann reminded him. "He literally grew up in places like that."

"Yeah," Vic said, with a sad grimace that she didn't quite understand. "I know."


	9. Chapter 9

"Great, good job," Mac said. "Now this time, don't stay there after the attack. Get out again, keep your distance. And lift your right knee a little faster if you can."

Mike nodded, frowning thoughtfully. He bounced on his toes, and then snapped into the spinning kick he'd been practising, hitting the heavy bag hard enough to set it swaying. He immediately moved back, bringing up his hands defensively.

Mac grinned. "Yeah, that's it. Ready to try it in a fight?"

"Sure," Mike said. "Should we put on the gear, or...?"

"Nah," Mac shook his head, already headed for the mats. "Light contact. I gotta go in like fifteen minutes. If we're messing around with gear, we'll barely have time to fight."

"Sounds good." Mike rolled his shoulders. "Thanks for the tips. I still feel like I should be paying you for this."

"Any time, man," Mac laughed. "I take cash, cheques, money orders..."

It was a comfortable joke. They'd discussed it seriously one time, early on, and Mac had made it clear that even though he'd fallen into a sort of personal trainer role with Mike, he wasn't ever going to accept money for it. Mac was just happy to have a reliable partner to train with every morning.

They met every day at six-thirty, as soon as the doors opened. It was a good time to train—hardly anyone was around. This morning, other than the guy currently dozing over his coffee at the front desk, they had the place to themselves.

Mac had experimented with coming in the evenings, to start with—he didn't love getting up so early in the morning, that was for sure—but that was when the guys from the gang mostly trained, and Mac figured that all in all it was safer to keep his distance.

Mike, of course, was totally unaware of the gang side of things. He'd wandered into the gym on January 3rd, on the heels of a New Year's resolution made at the strong urging of his wife. Mac, who'd been a member for five whole days at that point, had taken him under his wing.

Mike lived nearby. He was a real estate agent. He'd trained in a few different martial arts as a kid, but hadn't kept it up. He liked working out first thing in the morning so that he could get back home to have breakfast with his teenaged kids before they went to school.

He was ethnically Chinese, but he'd been born in Toronto. Second generation on his mom's side, first on his dad's, but unlike Huang and Geneviève, his parents had decided to only teach him English. Mike was a little rueful about that, but Mac privately figured that at this particular gym, Mike was better off not understanding the background chatter. 

Mike. Michael. His name was Michael. That was a head trip.

It shouldn't be. It was a common enough name.

Mac had called him 'Mike' from the first time they met, and Michael—Mike—hadn't objected.

There was a superficial resemblance, too. Not enough to be eerie. But the height, the build, yeah. He was fifteen years older than Michael— _Mac's_ Michael—Michael Tang—but he wore his hair the same way.

It was enough to distract Mac once in a while, to send him off on memory-tangents—but not enough to have him seeing ghosts. Mike was _nothing_ like Michael. He was cheerful and chatty, and always careful and gentle when they were fighting. He came in every morning with a fresh funny story about his wife or kids. Mac was always happy to play along and come up with an anecdote of his own about Vic or Taylor.

He hadn't told Mike yet that Taylor was his biological daughter—he just called her 'the kid I look after'.

He hadn't told Vic or Li Ann his new training partner's name.

He would. Eventually. It would come up naturally. It wouldn't be weird. They wouldn't need to talk about it.

He still had nightmares about Michael—Michael _Tang_ —pretty often. They were a fixture, just a part of his life. It wasn't so bad, now that Vic was always there to hold him when he woke up. And sometimes Li Ann, too.

Dreams about Michael, about his mom in the warehouse, about her boyfriends, about living on the street after his dad left him—they were still there, like pebbles in his shoe. But in this life he was living now, they were something he could set aside when he woke up. He didn't feel constantly on the verge of tumbling into them.

"Everything okay?" Mike asked, stepping back. They'd been sparring for a couple of minutes, and Mac had just completely forgotten to block or evade Mike's last attack. Mike's fist had stopped just short of his neck.

"Ah, yeah. Sorry. Head in the clouds," Mac said. He shook his head, and got back into it.

Okay, yeah, that was happening. Sometimes. Mike was used to it.

Embarrassed by his lapse, Mac brought his full concentration to the fight. He started pushing Mike, getting in past his guard, _tap_ _tap_ _tap_.

Mac was much, much better than Mike. Usually he held back, gave Mike opportunities to strike, gave him time to block or evade. Now he went all in.

No protective equipment; they were doing light contact only. Barest touches, but each one was an implicit threat. _I could have bruised you. I could have broken you. I could have killed you._

Mike was laughing. It wasn't the feral, wild laugh that Michael (Tang) or even Li Ann would let loose at times like this. Mike had never played for keeps. He thought of this as a sport. "Okay, okay, I yield!" Mike said.

Mac halted, panting and laughing too. Fighting was _fun_. He missed doing it with Li Ann and (the real) Michael, but Mike brought a playful energy with him that Mac really enjoyed. And sure, Mike couldn't challenge Mac the way Li Ann or Michael could, but honestly that was probably for the best. Mac's actual fighting days were over. Even after this light bout with Mike, his chest was feeling tight.

He was in the process of deciding whether he needed to go take a hit from his inhaler—it was lying on top of his bag, carefully set just at the side of the mats, because this actually happened a lot—when Mike's laugh stopped abruptly and his gaze flicked back over Mac's shoulder.

That should have been enough warning. If Mac hadn't been distracted by his increasing struggle to breathe, and still half-lost in thoughts about Michael, it would have been enough warning.

As it was, he just felt the blade at his throat and the hot breath at his ear.

"Don't move, white boy," a voice growled in Cantonese.

Shit, shit, shit.

What to do, how to play this? Mike's presence made everything a lot more complicated. Mike hadn't even had time to react yet—he was just frozen with a look of confusion edging toward horror.

Mac relaxed his body, held his hands loose at his sides, and said lightly, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese." In English, of course.

"Do you want money?" Mike asked, his voice cracking. "My wallet's in my locker, I've got forty bucks and some change."

"I don't want your fucking money," Mac's assailant said in English—and now that it wasn't a bedroom growl, Mac realized that he _knew_ that surly voice.

"Hi Paul," Mac said, as casually as possible under the circumstances.

He wasn't sure yet whether this _improved_ his chances of survival, versus if the knife-wielder had just been a guy from the gang who'd somehow discovered that Mac had ratted them out.

Mac _had_ ratted them out, and Li Ann had passed on the message, so Paul was probably here on the Director's orders. Doing Agency business. For the good guys.

That wasn't to say he might not engage in some recreational Mac-killing on the side, since the opportunity had just fallen into his lap.

Had he been _expecting_ to find Mac here? Maybe, maybe not. The Director was notorious for under-briefing her agents.

Meanwhile, the situation was progressing. "You _know_ this guy?" Mike asked, his eyes fixing wildly on Mac.

"Yeah, sure," Mac said. Well, obviously, since he'd just said his name. Now to make up a relationship that wouldn't get them both blown. "He's my—" It was tempting to reach for 'psycho ex,' but Mac suspected that would just get him a stab wound in the throat. "—estranged step-brother."

"Very funny," Paul muttered in Cantonese.

Which Mac was still pretending he couldn't understand, and it would be helpful if Paul would start fucking _playing along_ with that, because Mac sure as hell didn't want the sleepy gangster at the front desk to start thinking about a phone call Mac might have overheard three days ago.

"Ah, maybe we could put down the..." Mike tapped his own throat at the place where the knife was pressed against Mac's. The whites of his eyes were very wide. Poor guy.

"Yeah, Paul," Mac said, like it was no big deal. "You've had your fun."

Somewhat to Mac's surprise, the sharp pressure of the knife blade disappeared abruptly from his awareness, and simultaneously he was shoved forward. He didn't resist, but did turn the stumble into a spin so that he was facing Paul at a safe distance.

Well, 'safe'. Slightly more than arm's reach. But Paul had a knife, and his full fighting strength. The last time Mac and Paul had fought—not seriously, just feeling each other out—it had been a perfect draw. Since then, Mac's lungs had been burned out.

Speaking of which, the effort of breathing in and out was pretty distracting in itself. Mac thought again about the inhaler.

And thought about how there are only two ways to bluff, really—pretend you have more resources than you really have, or pretend you have less.

"Paul," Mac said, "I need to get to my bag." He let his right hand twitch just a little in that direction, and watched Paul flinch.

Yeah, Paul was keyed up. Whatever his business here, he definitely hadn't decided yet that he would let Mac live.

Mac let his breath wheeze audibly. It wasn't hard—he just had to stop working so hard at hiding it. "Paul," he said, "Please, man. I'm having an attack."

Paul frowned, looking momentarily puzzled. His gaze flicked over to the bag, and he couldn't exactly miss the bright blue inhaler sitting on top of it.

Mac moved slowly in the direction of the bag, keeping his hands very clearly in view. He hoped he looked really, fucking nonthreatening. He certainly _felt_ nonthreatening—his airways were closing up for real and he was getting dizzy.

Paul didn't stop him. Mac sank to his knees and grabbed the inhaler. Used it. Kept his hands away from his duffle bag, so Paul wouldn't think he might grab for a gun.

Pushed himself back to his feet, even though he was still dizzy, because on his knees in front of Paul was not a position he ever wanted to be in.

"Is that for real?" Paul asked, curling his lip.

"Yeah. 'Fraid so." Mac shook the inhaler and took another dose.

So Paul didn't know about the injuries that had led to Mac's retirement. Did he even know that Mac was out of the Agency?

Maybe not. Paul worked with Jackie, so Mac had assumed he'd be up-to-date. Wrongly, maybe. Jackie over-shared sometimes but only strategically, and she didn't necessarily have any interest in talking about Mac when he wasn't around. And Mac knew that Paul and Li Ann hadn't been chatting when they fought.

The medicine was working. Mac could breathe without forcing the air in and out. Good.

Paul smirked, then. "So, you're probably surprised to see me here," he said.

"No," Mac replied before he had time to think.

Oops, wait. Why would Paul even think that?

Did Paul not even know that Mac knew that Paul had been recruited by the Agency?

Shit, did anybody at the Agency ever tell anybody _anything_?

Answer: no, of course not. And if Paul didn't know that Li Ann talked to _Mac_ about her days ... okay, Mac should probably try not to rock that boat.

"I know where I last saw you," Mac said. "So if you're here now, I know who sent you."

Conscious, always, of Mike hovering at the edges, still looking confused and panicky.

Paul wasn't holding the knife aggressively anymore, but he was still holding it. Twirling it absently, one-handed. "Considering the last time we saw each other, I'd think you'd be a little more on your guard," he remarked. He halted the twirl of the knife and twitched it towards Mac, an implicit threat.

Mac very carefully, very casually, did not flinch. "I've been down this road before. Have you met Jackie?" Even if Paul and Jackie didn't chat very much, _surely_ Jackie had at least told him the story of her recruitment—she loved talking about how she'd held Mac prisoner for days.

"Yeah. I've met her." It came out a little less snarly than most of Paul's speech. Maybe they were finally connecting?

"So you didn't ... expect to find me here?" Mac ventured to ask directly.

Paul frowned. "No. The Director didn't tell me. Did she send you too?"

"No man, I'm not working. I'm just here for my morning cardio." And this conversation was probably starting to sound pretty weird to Mike, so Mac added "I'm a _nanny_ now," to try to give Paul some idea how he should be playing this. Had Paul even _gotten_ any training in how-to-not-sound-suspicious-in-front-of-civilians?

"A _nanny_?" Paul said disbelievingly.

So the answer to that last question was clearly 'no'.

"Yeah, and actually I need to be getting to work—wouldn't wanna miss morning playtime. So if you wouldn't mind..." Mac tentatively tried edging sideways, but Paul flashed the knife again.

"So you _aren't_ here investigating the gang?" Paul asked, in Cantonese. The question was brusque, aggressive.

"No, I _still_ don't speak Chinese," Mac said, in English. "Asshole."

Paul's mouth twisted, and he continued in Cantonese. "Are you _in_ the gang, Ramsey? Is that why you're here? Trying to claw your way back up?" The knife was pointing steadily at Mac now, and not in a friendly gesturing way.

"You can keep talking, but it's not going to start making any sense," Mac said patiently in English. Patronizingly, actually.

"Hey, you know, maybe we don't need the knife," Mike said. "Or maybe I should just go over to the desk and maybe call the police?"

He was very brave, Mike. He was a good guy. Mac definitely didn't want to see him get hurt.

"Don't worry," Mac said, making himself sound relaxed and on the edge of smiling. He didn't think he could manage an _actual_ smile right now without it looking predatory. "Paul's just joking around. We're family, it's okay."

Paul looked at Mike, and frowned like he'd only just noticed him. "Who the hell are you?" The knife, at last, went into the back of his belt.

"Ah, I'm Mac's training partner. Hi." Mike stuck out his hand earnestly, like he was going to re-frame this whole interaction into something socially acceptable by sheer force of will. "I'm Michael."

Mac saw the moment where Paul's heart skipped a beat. The bleakness descending behind his eyes. The hate, barely restrained, unleashed.

 _Fuck_ , Mac barely had time to think.

He didn't stay still. Paul moved towards Mac and Mac moved away. But Paul was faster, and the knife was out, and Mac couldn't deflect it fast enough.

The blade caught Mac at the top of his chest, just into the curve of his left shoulder.

Almost but not quite simultaneously, Mac's right fist connected with Paul's left cheek, _hard_.

Paul grunted and fell back. Staggered.

Mac gritted his teeth against the fiery lance of pain in his shoulder and tried to gather himself for a counterattack.

But Mike—brave, stupid Mike—thrust himself _between_ them.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" Mike shouted at Paul.

Mac saw Paul tightening his grip on the knife again.

"Paul!" Mac yelled sharply, hoping to cut through whatever madness was gripping the man. "Back the fuck off! If you hurt anybody else here, Mom is going to fucking _kill_ you. She will send assassins to hunt you down and kill you where you stand." 'Mom' was a metaphor. 'Assassins' wasn't. Mac hoped that Paul could figure that one out.

Paul clutched at the side of his face where Mac had hit him. "Fuck you, Ramsey," he choked out—and then turned and half-ran, half-stumbled away.

Mac and Mike stood frozen until the gym's front door shut behind him.

"I'm calling the police," Mike said immediately.

"No!" Mac countered sharply. "Don't. It's—it's just a family thing. It'll be okay. He didn't hurt me very badly."

Mike looked at Mac, and his eyes widened. "Oh Jesus, he _stabbed_ you. There's blood everywhere. You've got to lie down."

"It's not spurting," Mac said. It wasn't, was it? He didn't think it was, but he really couldn't look. Blood was a thing. A thing he had trouble with. "I'll be okay. Just, could you get the first aid kit from the desk?" He looked over towards the desk, thinking just then that it was really amazing that the desk guy hadn't noticed all the commotion—but of course he had, and he had a gun out.

Fuck, had Paul said anything that would blow their cover? Yes, yes he definitely had, but he hadn't said it very loud. The desk guy couldn't have heard. He was just reacting to the knife fight.

"Hey!" Mac called out to him. "Little help over here?"

* * *

Mac did not faint. It was close, though. He had the tunnel vision and the ringing in his ears.

He had to sit on the mats with his head on his knees and his shirt off while Mike and the gangster from the front desk wrapped bandages around his shoulder. Mike, it turned out, had done first aid training at some point. And the eighteen-year-old gangster seemed unperturbed by the situation. So that was good.

Also conveniently, Mac had a change of clothes in his bag. So once he was all bandaged up, and once the gangster had headed off for a mop and a bucket to clean the fighting area, Mac told Mike that he'd be fine from here—Mike could go home and make breakfast for his kids.

Mike shook his head. "You've got to go to the hospital. You're going to need stitches, and probably antibiotics and a tetanus shot. And you can't drive like that."

It was true, Mac's left shoulder screamed with pain whenever he moved it. "I can drive one-handed," Mac said. "My right arm's fine."

Mike just gave him a look. Mac guessed it was a Dad-with-teenagers look—it was a complex mix of disbelief, concern, and sheer oh-hell-no.

So the next thing Mac knew, Mike was driving him to the hospital.

"What's Vic's number?" Mike asked. He'd just plugged his cell phone into a hands-free holder on the dashboard and made a short call to his wife.

"We don't need to call Vic," Mac said. He _did_ have to call Vic—Vic would freak out when he didn't come home from the gym on time, if he didn't call. But—"I can call him after you drop me off at the hospital." If he talked to Vic privately, he could downplay the situation a lot more effectively.

"I'm not dropping you off," Mike said. "I'm sticking around until Vic or somebody else comes to stay with you."

"Ah, that's really not necessary," Mac said faintly. "It's just a cut."

"I've just watched you have an asthma attack, get _stabbed_ , and pass out," Mike said. "I am definitely making sure you have somebody to look after you before I leave you."

"I didn't pass out," Mac protested.

"Yes you did," Mike said. "As soon as Win applied the antiseptic. You were out cold for nearly two minutes. We were about thirty seconds away from calling an ambulance."

"I don't remember that," Mac said.

"And that is _another_ great argument for why I'm not leaving you alone. So give me Vic's number."

Mac groaned, and yielded.

"Hello?" Vic said on the speakerphone after a couple of rings. "Who's this?"

Just hearing his voice made Mac's shoulder hurt a little less.

"Hi, this is Michael," said Mike. "Mac's training partner from the gym."

"Wait, _Michael_?" Vic repeated. "Seriously? Uh, sorry. Never mind. The training partner, okay. Hi ... Michael. Why are you—oh fuck, has something happened to Mac?"

"No!" Mac said quickly, because he'd heard the panic ramping up in Vic's voice. "I'm here. I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Mike shot him a sideways frown. "Everything's not fine. Mac had a run-in with his step-brother."

"Step-brother?"

"Paul," Mac clarified quickly.

"Oh, Jesus," Vic said. "He was at the gym? What happened?"

"He was his usual delightful self," Mac said.

"He _stabbed_ Mac," Mike said, sounding like he could barely believe the words he was saying. "We're heading for the Scarborough ER. I was hoping you could meet us there, I don't want to leave Mac alone."

"Stabbed?" Vic made a little choking noise, and then asked: "How badly?"

"It's just a cut in my shoulder," Mac said.

"The knife went in right up to the _hilt_ ," Mike said, sounding traumatized.

"I'll need stitches," Mac conceded. "But I might be all _day_ waiting at the ER. Taylor's not gonna be up for that."

"I'll figure something out," Vic said. "I'll meet you there as soon as I can. Thanks ... Michael." He hung up.

"Okay, something doesn't add up," Mike said. "Paul stabbed you when I told him who _I_ was. And Vic sounded a little weird, too, when I told him my name. Mac, what the hell have you been _telling_ your family about me?"

Mac tried for a reassuring smile, but it felt pretty strained. It didn't help that he had to swallow against a surge of nausea—which he put down to the pain, because talking about Michael Tang was _not_ going to fuck him up, every time, for the rest of his life. "It wasn't you," he said. "There was another Michael in our lives."

Mike frowned. "Paul thought I was this other guy?"

"No, he knows you're not. I think the name just took him off guard."

"Paul stabbed you because of my _name_?" Mike raised an eyebrow. "That seems a little over the top."

True. This maybe did require a bit of explanation. "Michael was a very bad man," Mac said. "He hurt a lot of people."

" _Michael_ ... you always call me 'Mike'," Mike observed. "I tried for a week to get you to switch, and then I gave up. Is this why? Something to do with the other Michael?"

"Ah, yeah," Mac admitted. "Lot of bad memories tied up with that name. Sorry."

Mike shrugged. "You could have said something."

"I don't like talking about him," Mac said.

"Hm," Mike said. Then, "Was?"

"Huh?"

"You've been using the past tense. So this guy's out of the picture now?" Mike sounded hopeful.

"Yeah." Mac slouched in his seat, and rode out another wave of nausea. His neck felt clammy. "He died a little over a year ago."

"Oh," Mike said, clearly at a bit of a loss.

"It was my fault," Mac added.

Mike's eyebrows went up.

No. Wait. Li Ann had talked him through this.

"It _wasn't_ my fault," Mac corrected himself, wincing as the car went over a pothole. He cradled his left arm a little tighter with his right. "Michael made his own bad choices. But it had to do with me. Paul blames me for his death."

" _Oh_ ," Mike said again, like things were finally falling into place.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Mac said, closing his eyes. "I don't wanna barf in your car." Which maybe sounded like a non-sequitur, but it wasn't.

"Ah, just let me know if you need me to pull over," Mike said.

"Sure," Mac said. "Yes. Now."

* * *

A few minutes later, they were back on the road.

Mac was wrapped in the emergency blanket from Mike's trunk, which was pink fleece printed with a teddy bear pattern. Really dignified. But he couldn't stop shivering, and he couldn't put his coat on over his hurt shoulder.

"S-sorry," Mac gritted out through his chattering teeth.

"Don't worry about it," Mike said. "We're almost there."

* * *

At the ER, Mike stuck at Mac's side through triage. He helpfully brought up the fainting, vomiting, and asthma attack, all of which Mac would have omitted as irrelevant. As a result, Mac was treated to an immediate saline drip, and a gurney to wait on instead of a chair.

He did feel a lot better lying down, to be honest.

"I had to bring my oldest here a couple of years ago with a broken wrist," Mike said, making conversation. "Skateboarding injury. We had about a six hour wait."

"Did she heal okay?" Mac asked.

"Yeah, and she still loves skateboarding," Mike said with a rueful grin. "She's an adrenaline junkie. Her _sister_ is into ballet."

"Taylor's in a ballet class," Mac mentioned. "But I think she'd be better off taking kung fu."

Mike looked skeptical. "She's two years old."

"Nearly three."

"Well, you could always suggest it to her parents," Mike said.

"Yeah," Mac said. "Actually, I'm her biological father." Oh, he hadn't planned to bring that up.

Well, Mike had stood over him while he threw up in a snowbank, and helped him back into the car and wrapped him in a pink blanket and given him wet wipes to clean his face. Their relationship was growing in all _kinds_ of ways today.

"Huh?" Mike said. "Really? Wow. Do, uh, Geneviève and Huang know?"

"Yeah. It's why they hired me. Not like I had any previous nannying experience."

"Oh," Mike said. "Well, that's cool." He sounded like he meant it—it was cool, and intriguing. "Hey, I thought you were gay, though?"

Mac laughed softly. "Mostly gay. But I've been with some women."

"And the mother—is she in the picture?"

"Li Ann. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned her."

Mike frowned. "I thought you said she was your sister?"

Right. Maybe they should _stop_ telling people that, if they were going to go ahead and mention that they had a kid together. "We call each other brother and sister," Mac clarified, "but we're not related. We're just really close, and we've known each other for a long time."

"Can I ask—I mean, tell me if this is too personal. But why did you give Taylor up for adoption? You weren't that young—you must've been in your twenties, at least?"

"We weren't in a good place," Mac said. Which was an understatement.

He might have tried to expand on that a little more within the bounds of their cover story—wait, what _was_ their cover story now? It was hard to keep track—but just then, Vic arrived.

" _Mac_ ," he breathed, looking distraught. "Oh my god." He rushed straight to Mac's side, and touched his face gently. Fingers splayed along the side of Mac's face, thumb brushing his lips. He didn't lean in for a kiss, though. He looked over at Mike. "You must be Michael?"

Mike glanced towards Mac. "You can call me Mike," he offered, and stuck out his hand.

Vic exchanged a firm, manly handshake with him, and said "Thanks so much for looking after Mac. What _happened_ , exactly?"

"Paul came by the gym," Mac jumped in quickly. He could give the Mike-appropriate version of the story now, and fill in the details later. "I don't think he expected to see me there. He kind of freaked. Uh, somebody should probably warn Li Ann."

"I already have," Vic said, darkly.

Telling Li Ann meant telling the Director. Paul was in _so_ much shit now...

Well, maybe. Paul was an active agent and Mac wasn't, so there was the question of whose skin the Director valued more.

"He hasn't seen a doctor yet." Mike said. "The nurse said that he's got a mild case of shock, so he needs to keep lying down. And there's a pan here, if he starts feeling sick again."

"I'm _fine_ ," Mac murmured, to Vic's appalled look.

Vic ignored Mac, rather pointedly. "Did they give him anything for the pain?"

"No, I don't think so," Mike said.

"Okay," Vic said, sounding relieved. At least he didn't elaborate. Mac preferred not to have Mike thinking that he was a junkie.

Mike took his leave at that point, following a round of heartfelt gratitude from Vic.

And then they were alone.

"I _knew_ that gym was trouble," Vic muttered, squeezing Mac's hand on his good side.

"It wasn't anything to do with the gym," Mac pointed out. "It was Paul. _My_ past catching up to me. That was gonna happen sooner or later, with him out in the city. At least the fact that it's a crime gym means they probably won't cancel my membership for getting in a knife fight and bleeding all over the mats."

Vic choked out a clearly involuntary laugh.

"Where's Taylor, by the way?" Mac asked.

"I left her with Rose from ballet. Geneviève's going to pick her up from there."

"Okay, good," Mac said. "I told Mike that she's my daughter, by the way."

"Oh?"

"It's not a secret."

"True," Vic said.

"Speaking of secrets, though—I told Mike that Paul's my step-brother."

"Right, he mentioned that on the phone," Vic recalled. "Sorry, I nearly blew it. I wasn't expecting it."

"It's okay," Mac said. "Being with me is complicated. There's a lot of lies to keep track of."

Vic gave him a funny look. "Mac," he said, "I _love_ being with you. Never forget that, okay?"

Why did Vic say that? Oh. Maybe Mac had been letting a bit of the darkness creep through.

He was in a lot of pain, and it was all tied up with Michael again.

"Actually, why _did_ you say Paul was your step-brother?" Vic asked. "Wasn't that overly complicated? You could have just said that you knew him."

"I was trying to give Mike a reason not to call the cops when Paul pulled a knife on me," Mac said. Only, Vic had a point. Mac hadn't needed to invent a relationship between himself and Paul. Why had he?

Lying about his life just felt so natural. He hadn't even stopped to consider whether he should.

"Maybe you _should_ have let him call the cops," Vic said. "The Director could've sorted it out later. You might've avoided getting stabbed."

"He only stabbed me in the shoulder," Mac pointed out (again). "It's not that big of a deal."

Vic eyed him warily. "Was he _aiming_ for the shoulder?"

"Oh. Uh." Mac thought back to Paul's snarling thrust, his own movement and counterattack. "No," he admitted. "He was probably trying to kill me."

Vic paled, and shut his eyes for a moment. "Jesus," he whispered, almost like he was actually praying.

Which wasn't a thing that Vic did, as far as Mac knew.

"Hey, Vic, it's okay," Mac said, squeezing his hand. Was Vic _crying_? Oops. "I'm fine, I just need a few stitches. Gonna have a scar, I guess, but you'll still think I'm pretty, right? Vic? Do you need to sit down?"

Vic shook his head, and swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He hadn't been sobbing—he'd just been standing there all tight, silent, with some tears tracking down his cheeks and dripping off the bottom of his chin. "I'm never going to get used to this," he said. "I don't _want_ to get used to this. I thought that now that we were out of the Agency, it wouldn't—"

"I'm still me," Mac said, apologetically, because he'd figured out what Vic was upset about. Mac had nearly died again, right. "Still got that whole past. Just another day in the life. Sorry."

"Don't fucking apologize for it," Vic said. He sniffled, ruining the otherwise fierce effect. "We're going to get you patched up and I'm going to get you home, and I'm going to put you in fucking _bubble wrap_ for a few days, okay? Just until I can let you out of my sight without panicking again."

Okay, this was a thing. Vic got like this. And honestly, Mac lapped it up. It wasn't a realistic approach to life, exactly, but while it lasted it made him feel so safe and loved. "Hey," he mentioned cheerfully, "I love bubble wrap! Can we get some, actually? It's so _fun_!"


	10. Chapter 10

It was only a two hour wait before a doctor came along to check Mac's wound and hopefully stitch him up. She started by peeling away the bandages that Mike and Win had applied—

—and the next thing Mac knew, he was lying in a different bed in a different room, with an oxygen tube in his nose.

His shoulder was being stabbed. Michael was trying to kill him. Michael? Paul? He tried to roll out of the way, to get away, but his wrists were tied up. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. "Gah—!" he grunted, pulling wildly at the restraints.

"Uh oh, here we go again," someone muttered at his side.

Safety. The voice meant safety.

Mac stopped struggling, gasping.

"Breathe through your nose," Vic said, cupping Mac's cheek with a warm, rough palm.

Vic, it was Vic.

Vic looked haggard.

Mac breathed through his nose. It felt a lot better. That would be the oxygen—he remembered this feeling. "What happened?" he asked. "Where are we?"

"Oh thank fucking god, you're _back_ ," Vic said, like this was a surprising fact. "What do you remember, Mac?"

Mac thought back. It was a little hard to grasp. He thought he'd been having nightmares, but he couldn't remember them. "The ER," he said finally. "Paul ... stabbed me?" His shoulder hurt a lot, that wasn't his imagination. His wrists hurt, too.

"Yeah," Vic said. "Ah, you fainted when the doctor came to stitch you up."

"Okay," Mac said. He frowned. "Well, that usually happens." He looked down at his body. He was wearing a hospital gown. His wrists were attached to the bed rails with heavy velcro restraints, and the skin around them was rubbed raw. He couldn't see his feet—there was a blanket over his legs—but it felt like he was tied down at the ankles, too. " _This_ doesn't usually happen."

"When you came to, you freaked out. You came up fighting. I had to wrestle you down."

"Oh shit," Mac said weakly. He couldn't remember any of this. "I didn't hurt anybody, did I?"

"No," Vic assured him quickly. "But then you went into one of your, uh, you know when you sort of curl up in a ball and get lost in your head? And I had to tell them about the PTSD. And then, uh, because of attacking the doctor and everything, they put the cuffs on you, and somebody gave you a shot of something that was supposed to calm you down I think? And I told them not to, but apparently I don't get to make that call. And I think the shot confused you, and the cuffs panicked you, and you started yelling about a lot of things, and—shit, I'm so sorry, if they didn't think you were making it all up they would've called the police, so I had to let them think you were crazy. You're in the psych ward now."

"Oh." Mac swallowed. His throat was sore, actually—he could believe he'd been yelling. It was unnerving him that he couldn't remember any of this. "Vic, what _day_ is it?"

Vic gave him a startled look, but then patted his (good) shoulder reassuringly. "It's still today, don't worry," he said. "Getting towards supper time, though."

"Okay." Mac took a shaky breath. Looked down at his chafed wrists again. "Have I woken up before?"

"A few times, yeah," Vic said evenly. "This is the first time you've been coherent at all, though."

"Why the oxygen?" Mac asked. "If this is the psych ward."

"Well, it's still part of the hospital," Vic pointed out. "Ah, you were having some respiratory distress. Along with everything else."

Mac considered that. Breathed.

The oxygen assist felt really good.

His shoulder was screaming with pain. His wrists were quite sore.

Something had gone horribly wrong, and he didn't really understand what.

"Now what?" Mac said. "Can I get out of here?"

Vic winced. "I have to tell you—I'm so sorry, Mac. Once they brought you up here—I didn't know what to do. I called the Director."

"Oh." The panicky flutter in his chest was not a reasonable reaction. "No, that makes sense. I see why you had to do that."

"And she sent Patricia."

"The Agency shrink?" The flutter increased to a pounding, and Mac started seeing black spots dancing in his vision. _Not_ a reasonable reaction. He breathed carefully through his nose, and the spots faded to brown, and away. "Okay. I guess it's better than ending up in the Scarborough locked ward for a month because they think I think I'm James Bond."

"Yeah." Vic seemed relieved that Mac wasn't freaking out. Wasn't visibly freaking out. "Ah, she came by twenty minutes ago and gave you a shot of something. She wouldn't tell me what it was."

"Oh." Mac thought about that. "Well, I guess it worked."

Vic looked momentarily surprised, and then he gave a rueful nod. "Right. I guess it did."

"So, getting out of here?" Mac asked again, hopefully.

Vic shrugged. "Patricia said she'd come back soon—" He interrupted himself, turning towards the sound of the room's door opening. "That's probably her now."

But it was Li Ann who stepped into the room.

She was wearing her winter jacket, open, over her maroon velvet suit. Mac loved the texture of that suit. There were snowflakes still unmelted in her hair.

She came straight to the bed and kissed his forehead. "I came as soon as I could," she said.

"He just woke up," Vic said.

She fixed Mac with a concerned, assessing gaze. "How are you doing, sweetie?"

He managed a pale smile for her. "Okay. Been better." He flopped his right hand in its restraint. "Can I get these off?"

Vic's forehead crinkled. "Maybe not yet. I don't want to get in trouble with the staff. I had to argue pretty hard to be allowed to stay in here with you at all."

"I've just had a long talk with the Director," Li Ann said. "I think ... I _think_ I've finally managed to hold her to account. She made a mistake, and she acknowledges it, and she apologizes."

"Okay, that's nice," Vic said. "But Mac is still stabbed and locked in the psych ward."

"Well, she gave me—" Li Ann started to say.

But then the door opened again.

Patricia walked in.

She was wearing a white lab coat over pink scrubs, perfect sheep's clothing for an Agency wolf. Mac wouldn't be at all surprised to find that she had a gun or two hidden in there somewhere. She had long white-blond bleached hair, sharp white teeth, and a barbed-wire choker tattoo. She wore a name badge marking her as visiting staff, which Mac was sure was just as legit as his own ID.

He didn't realize that he'd clenched his fists and bared his teeth until he felt Vic's warm, rough fingers gently covering his right hand.

"The rest of you, out," Patricia said. "I'll deal with this."

"No," Li Ann said, not-so-subtly placing herself between Mac and the she-wolf. "I have a note from the Director. Mac's file has been transferred to me. All decisions about his care go through me. _You_ answer to me, when you're dealing with him."

Patricia raised a darkly pencilled brow. "Really?"

"Here." Li Ann darted a hand into her jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper.

Patricia took it and unfolded it. Her eyes darted over it quickly—and then she brought it up to her face, and smelled it.

"All right," she said with a shrug. "Then with _your_ permission, I'd like to examine the patient."

Li Ann looked to Vic, and then to Mac. "Well, I think we have to let her," she said quietly. "If we're ever going to get you out of here."

"Just don't leave me alone with her," Mac murmured. Hoped it didn't quite sound like desperate begging. In four-point restraints, he was completely helpless. He couldn't think of a single trick that could get him out of this one.

"We're staying right here," Li Ann said. Vic nodded, and kept his hand on Mac's.

"Have it your way," Patricia said, rolling her eyes. She brought a fabric-covered elastic out of her lab coat pocket and pulled her neon-white hair into a quick top-knot. Then she strolled around the foot of Mac's bed, and came up on his left side. Li Ann and Vic watched her warily, but didn't move to prevent her. "So, Ramsey. Here we are again. Want to tell me what happened?"

"The Director's loose dog bit me," Mac said. "No big deal. They gave me a rabies shot downstairs."

"And yet you're the one on a leash," she said, eyeing his cuffs.

"What, these old things?" Mac said. "Vic and I have been talking about spicing things up in the bedroom for a while, now."

"What? No we definitely have not," Vic sputtered, giving Patricia an intensely uncomfortable look.

Vic had never really been clear on how repartee worked.

"Interesting," Patricia smiled, ignoring Vic. "Is that something you used to do with Michael?"

Oh, point to Patricia. Mac couldn't manage a comeback when his throat was closing up and he was trying not to vomit.

"Jesus!" Vic interjected. "What the hell kind of psychiatrist are you? You don't just ... just make _suggestive comments_ about somebody who abused him for years and tried to _kill_ him!"

"Oh, is _that_ what the relationship was," Patricia said, tapping her lips thoughtfully. "Shit, that does clear a few things up. Ramsey, if I'd known that the fastest path to personal information about you was through your partner, I would have invited him to join our sessions in the _first_ place."

"Patricia," Li Ann said coldly, "quit the games."

Patricia mock-pouted. "He started it."

"You're here to _help_ Mac," Li Ann said. "Get on with it, and get him out of here."

"It's not quite that simple," Patricia said. "Unless I can establish with reasonable confidence that he's not any danger to himself or others, I can't just cut him loose. And I can't leave him _here_ , obviously. So if you don't get your brother to cooperate with me, I'll have him transferred to the Agency—and that's not something you can overrule, it's a core operating protocol."

Locked up in the Agency shit shit shit shit shit. Mac felt like his limbs were floating detached from his body. He was dizzy, falling, but he was tied to the bed.

"Mac, don't freak out," Vic was saying, earnestly, leaning over him. Vic's hand was on his face. Mac turned towards it, seeking the comfort. "We're not going to let that happen, we're _not_. But I think you'd better try cooperating a little more."

"Okay," Mac murmured against Vic's hand. "I'll be good."

"Well then," Patricia said. "Let's re-start. What happened?"

"I don't remember," Mac said. His voice sounded thin and far-away in his own ears. "I'm sorry, I really don't."

"Ah, he fainted when the doctor came to do his stitches," Vic said. "And then when he came to, he had some, I guess, scary disorientation. And things got kind of out of hand."

Patricia gazed at Vic. "Elaborate."

Haltingly, Vic re-told the story that he'd told Mac earlier. With apologetic glances at Mac and Li Ann, he filled in more details—the things Mac had yelled, his desperate thrashing against the restraints. "Sometimes he switched over into Cantonese," Vic added. "So I don't know what he was saying then. In English—there was a lot about Michael, bombs, guns. Soldiers. Sorry, I think your mom was mixed up in there too."

Li Ann listened with a hard, tight-lipped expression.

Mac wished he could be swallowed up by the hospital bedding and not have to listen to this. Not have to watch everyone else listening to it.

He also wished that he could get the cuffs off and send Patricia away and just curl up with Vic and Li Ann and know that the past didn't matter, he was _safe_ now.

But he wasn't safe. The wound in his shoulder was a constant background shriek. The cuffs made it worse. _Struggling_ against the cuffs made it ten times worse.

Paul may have held the knife, but Mac knew this wound was from Michael.

Michael would be laughing. That wild, hollow laugh. That laugh that came when he drew blood while they were fighting, or during sex. I _own_ you, you're mine to fuck up and mine to pick up the pieces.

That was the part Michael forgot in the end. Picking up the pieces.

Wait, everyone was looking at him. Vic had stopped talking a while ago.

Mac forced his breathing to slow down again. Let his arms go loose in their restraints. Unclenched his teeth, swallowed the last sob. Made himself go limp like a wrung-out washcloth.

He was okay. He was going to be okay. He just needed a moment.

"So has this been happening a lot?" Patricia asked, dryly.

"Usually only at night," Li Ann said. She sounded tired, and sad. Mac wished he wasn't the one making her sound like that. "When he has the nightmares."

"December was bad, though," Vic said. "Well, not like this. But the depression."

"Has he attempted suicide again?" Patricia asked.

Li Ann and Vic both gave her uncomfortable, wary looks.

"I know there can't have been any _serious_ attempts since the one in prison, or I would have been informed," Patricia said, sounding a little impatient. "But I want to know if there have been any times when you intervened, and covered it up."

"No," Li Ann said.

"Yes," Vic said, simultaneously.

Li Ann frowned at him. He lifted his chin.

"The drinking," he said. "Last winter."

"That wasn't really—" she said.

"It was," he said. "He _told_ me it was, afterwards."

"The drinking?" Patricia prompted. "I know about the binge-drinking, it's on his file. But wanting to black out isn't the same as wanting to die."

Vic hunched his shoulders, looking upset. "This wasn't long after Michael died. He stopped taking his antidepressants, and on a couple of nights he tried to drink a whole bottle of vodka at once. I caught him and stopped him by ... by _luck_ , basically. And after that ... after that we never left him alone at night. Ever again."

"So would you say that he's been in crisis for the entire past year?" Patricia asked, dispassionately.

"No," Vic said. "It's not like that. He's mostly okay. Just, when stuff comes up he needs one of us to be there for him."

"And did you have any clues over the past few weeks that a breakdown was imminent?"

"Hey, I think I should get a pass for today," Mac interjected, a little indignantly. "Michael _stabbed_ me."

They all looked at him. Vic's look was especially pained.

It took him a moment to realize his mistake. " _Paul_ ," he amended. "Paul stabbed me." He forced himself to meet Patricia's eyes. To really face her, masks down. "I'm not hallucinating," he said. "I haven't lost touch with reality. I've been ... remembering Michael. A lot. Lately. It happens sometimes. He fucked me up, I know that. I guess he fucked Paul up too. Paul stabbed me because of Michael. Because of a stupid coincidence. My training partner at the new gym, his name's Michael too. The name is maybe ... a little distracting. But I'm going to work through it. Mike is the nicest guy, you can't even imagine. He's got exactly zero personality traits in common with Michael Tang."

Patricia looked at him for a moment, and then turned to Li Ann. "Do you want my assessment here, or would you prefer to go out into the hall?"

Li Ann looked to Vic, who only shrugged and looked a little lost. Then she drew closer to Mac and said quietly, "Your call, sweetie. Do you want to hear what she's got to say directly, or would you rather I deal with it and let you know what you need to know?"

Door number two was tempting. Being locked in four-point restraints in a psych ward did _not_ make him feel like a resilient, capable human being.

But on the whole, he thought he'd better face this. "No, stay here," he said. "I can handle it."

Li Ann nodded, stepped back, and gave a go-ahead signal to Patricia.

"All right," she said. "The PTSD is an ongoing concern. So what. He's lived with it for this long. My concern is: if I let him go, can he stay out of this place? If too many former agents start cracking up in the local hospitals, you understand, some poor nurse might start connecting the dots, and then where would we be? Murphy and Camier have better things to do. Let's not go there."

"I won't come back here," Mac promised. "Just let me out of here, I'll hold it together, I swear."

"Shut up while I'm talking, Ramsey," Patricia said. " _You_ don't even remember how you ended up here _today_. Li Ann—I've got to adjust his medication. Try to even things out for him some more. Now we've got two treatment options, and apparently it's your call, so here we go. Option one: I prescribe Health-Canada-approved drugs that you can read all about on the internet. Option two: I prescribe drugs that don't have names, that work better."

Vic rubbed his chin, eyeing Patricia. "So, did you work with Dr. Fry _directly_ , or...?"

Patricia grimaced. "He was a strange little man."

"Option one," Li Ann said. Belatedly, she looked at Vic and Mac. "Right, guys?"

Vic nodded.

Agency mystery drugs were not a road that Mac wanted to go down. He nodded too.

Patricia sighed. "Go ahead then. Walk when you could fly. Don't expect any fucking miracles, these drugs probably aren't going to change very much."

"That's fine," Vic said, narrowing his eyes at Patricia. "I like Mac the way he is."

"Me too," Li Ann said, loyally.

Patricia snorted. "You're both so sweet you make my teeth hurt. He really is a fucking mess, though. Good thing Mansfield has a caretaker complex."

"I don't—" Vic shook his head, looking exasperated. "Wanting to take care of the people you love isn't a _complex_."

"Whatever." Patricia waved a hand vaguely. "It's fine, your pathologies fit together like puzzle pieces. You're perfect for each other. Anyway. I have a nice dry bottle of gin and a Swedish masseuse in a bondage collar waiting for me at home, so let's wrap it up. I'll do my magic and get Ramsey released. I'm going to need a check-in, though: Monday at the Agency."

"Hard pass," Mac said, from the bed. Still feeling those restraints. "No. I'm retired. I don't have to go back there."

"You do if you can't stay out of trouble in the real world," Patricia said.

"The Agency's trouble came and found _me_ ," Mac reminded her.

"You got a little stabbed," she said. "Boo hoo. You're the one who got yourself involuntarily admitted to psychiatric care."

"Look, if he could see somebody on the _outside_ ," Vic said, "like, a regular therapist not connected to the Agency, maybe he could make some progress."

Mac guessed that Vic was angling for official permission to get him seeing Reshmi again. That was a nice idea.

"Well, that can't happen," Patricia said. "National security concerns. Shit, Mansfield, you _know_ this stuff."

Vic winced, and evaded eye contact.

"If he comes into the Agency," Li Ann said to Patricia, in a hard voice, "he's under my protection. I meet him at the door, I go everywhere with him. You don't get him alone."

"Rrowr," Patricia said. "All right, if that's the way you want it. I wasn't planning to _eat_ him, you know."

"Yeah, but look at those teeth," Mac said, faintly.

Patricia smiled at him, baring her fangs.

"So we're done here?" Li Ann said. "Mac can go home?"

Vic looked up sharply. "No, wait. He still needs the stab wound treated. The doctor couldn't do it earlier because of—well, everything that happened."

"So go back to the ER," Patricia said.

"Sure, only what if it happens again?"

Crap. Vic had a point. Mac wished he could promise that it wouldn't, but ... yeah, he really wasn't good with blood.

Patricia eyed Mac, like he was something annoying on her shoe. "Right," she said. "Shit. Okay, I can give him a shot that should stop him from fainting. That oughta prevent an immediate relapse, assuming it was the disorientation that triggered the episode."

"A shot of _what_?" Vic asked.

"Do you want the chemical formula?" Patricia asked, presumably rhetorically given the scorn her voice was dripping with. She pulled a pink-banded hypodermic needle out of her lab coat pocket. "It's a stimulant."

"So you just ... carry that with you at all times?" Mac asked, eyeing it warily.

"Li Ann, are we okay with this?" Vic asked.

Li Ann looked at Patricia. "You promise it won't hurt him?"

"It'll wear off in eight to twelve hours," Patricia said.

Li Ann looked at Vic, and shrugged. "We just need to get him home, right?"

"Is anybody going to ask if _I'm_ okay with this?" Mac asked.

Vic looked abashed. "Sorry. _Are_ you?"

Oh, good question. Mac hadn't actually thought that one through yet, he was just annoyed that everyone was talking over his head. "I guess we don't have a better plan," he admitted.

So Li Ann gave Patricia a little nod—Li Ann had the subtle authoritative gestures _down_ , Mac admired that about her—and Patricia moved in with the needle.

"Oh," Mac suddenly remembered, _awkward_ , "actually sometimes I have trouble with—"

He felt the needle piercing his skin—in his _neck_ , god _damn_ it Patricia—and there was a fast waterfall rush in his ears, the world fell sharply towards black ... and then the world just popped right back, wow. Twice as bright as before, and in Technicolor.

"—never mind," he finished.

Patricia straightened back up. "You might feel some heart palpitations," she said. "Nothing to worry about. Dry mouth, loss of appetite. Phantom lights at the edge of your vision. Oh, and don't expect to sleep tonight."

"You said it wouldn't _hurt_ him," Vic protested, looking aghast.

"No, I said it would stop him from fainting, and it would wear off in eight to twelve hours," Patricia said. "Tell you what, though—I'll walk you down to the ER, and make sure he gets seen immediately. I want to get out of here as badly as you do—if I leave Sven waiting for too long, he takes it out on my tarantula."


	11. Chapter 11

Back at Geneviève and Huang's house, Vic wanted to bring Mac straight up to the bedroom to lie down and Li Ann wanted to feed him soup, but Taylor wanted him to have a tea party with her doll, so she won.

"What dat?" she asked, patting his sling when he sat down cross-legged across from her on the living room floor.

He winced even at her light touch—nobody had seen fit to give him any kind of painkillers. But after breathing through the pain for a second, he managed to smile gently at her. "My shoulder got hurt," he said. "This is called a 'sling'. It stops me from moving my arm, so it can get better. I have to do hugs with one arm for a while, okay?"

Taylor regarded him gravely. "You gots a boo-boo."

"Yup, that's right. I got a boo-boo."

"Tea," she said, and handed him an empty toy teacup.

Mac sipped it delicately. "Thanks, Taytay," he said. "This really hits the spot."

Three imaginary cups of tea later, Li Ann ordered him to the dining room table for a real one. He was happy to accept at that point, because Patricia hadn't been kidding about the dry mouth.

Whatever that stuff had been that she'd given him, he was definitely feeling it. All of his senses seemed to be tuned to about 130%. The world felt sharp-edged and hyper-real. Mac had done speed a few times, at parties in Hong Kong, and this wasn't exactly the same but it was close.

He felt so _alive_. Thinking back on the past few months, it was like he was standing on a clear hilltop in the sunshine looking down into a fog bank.

And Mac knew this was dangerous; he wasn't an idiot. He was going to ride out this high and enjoy it while it lasted, and hopefully not let Vic or Li Ann know exactly what was happening because they'd definitely worry, and then he'd go back down into the fog and deal with it as best as he could. Working out helped a lot—he was going to have to keep doing that, injury be damned.

Huang came home about fifteen minutes later. He had a big rolled-up sheet of bubble wrap with him. "I got it from the print room at work," he explained, handing it over. "I offered to pay for it but they said I didn't need to."

Geneviève gave him a tolerantly amused look. "I think the bubble wrap was a _metaphor_ , my little cabbage."

"It was a metaphor, but this is awesome," Mac said. "Thanks!"

* * *

Patricia hadn't been kidding about the insomnia, either.

Long after Vic and Li Ann were asleep, Mac found himself prowling the halls. He couldn't settle down, and didn't know what to do with himself.

He'd been popping bubble wrap in the living room for a while—trying to do it meditatively, one mindful pop at a time, making it last—when the downstairs hall light came on.

"Oh, hello," Geneviève said, tugging the front of her fuzzy pink dressing gown closed a little tighter. "I didn't expect to see you down here."

Mac looked up. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"

She shook her head. "I'm in perimenopause. I have trouble sleeping sometimes. Is it the pain keeping you awake?"

Mac nodded, choosing not to say anything about the mystery stimulant. Vic, while talking to Geneviève and Huang earlier, had managed to convey the impression that they'd spent the whole day waiting for treatment in the ER. He hadn't ever actually _lied_ , but he certainly hadn't mentioned Patricia or the psych ward.

"Would you like some hot cocoa?" Geneviève offered. "I was planning to make some for myself."

"Ah, sure," Mac said.

He followed her into the kitchen, and she bustled around for a couple of minutes, making the cocoa. She did it old-school, warming the milk in a saucepan on the stove-top. When it was ready, she grated a little nutmeg on the top.

"Here," she said, giving him a mug and sitting down across from him at the small kitchen table.

"Thanks," he said, taking a cautious sip. His sense of taste was just as hyped up as all his other senses—for a moment, he was completely transported into the experience of the chocolate and the nutmeg.

Then he noticed the way that Geneviève was looking at him. Like there was something she wanted to say and she was waiting for his attention.

"Your Agency's Director called me today," she said. "Around noon."

"Oh?" Mac said cautiously.

"She wanted me to know that you'd had some difficulties at the hospital and that you'd been admitted into the psychiatric ward."

"Oh." Mac felt exhausted, suddenly, by the Director's unending drive to interfere in his life. He wasn't sure what was the best thing to say now, but Geneviève was regarding him neutrally and didn't seem particularly pissed off, so he decided to downplay the whole thing as best as he could. "Yeah, uh, I sort of fainted when the doctor took off my bandages, and then I panicked when I woke up I guess. It's a reflex thing—if I can't remember where I am, I have to assume somebody's trying to kill me. I'm fine now."

Geneviève nodded, looked at him thoughtfully, and sipped her cocoa. "My father suffers from depression," she said. "It's one of the reasons his marriage with my mother broke up. My step-mother copes with it better."

Mac frowned. "Um, I'm sorry to hear that," he said, in lieu of _why the hell are you telling me this?_.

She shrugged. "Of course we all wish that he didn't have to experience these darker periods. They're painful for him, and for the family. But we get through them together."

"Oh," Mac said, and decided not to try picking up his mug for the moment. He wasn't sure his hand would be steady enough.

She looked at him again. Seemed to wait for him to say something else. When he didn't, her expression tightened for a moment and her gaze flicked down, like she was coming to a decision. Then she looked at him, steady on, and said, "One of my half-brothers was bipolar. He took his own life when he was about your age."

"Oh," Mac said, more faintly than before.

Geneviève kept looking at him for another long moment, and then she scowled, muttered " _Tabarnak_ ," and took a long drink of cocoa.

Mac had known her long enough to recognize the Quebecois profanity. The last time he'd heard it had been when Taylor had, with a wildly swinging hand, caught a full glass of orange juice and sent it shattering to the kitchen floor.

"My brother," she said, "he was five years younger than me. He was so sweet, and funny. He was my favourite. He ... he struggled with addictions. At one point, he was living on the street in Montreal. I heard from somebody that he was sleeping in métro stations. I drove to Montreal, I found him, I brought him back to stay with me. I was already married to Huang at that time. Huang was nervous around him at first. But he got over it. Jean-Marc stayed with us for a year. Everything turned out all right, that time." She cleared her throat. "The next time, it didn't."

"Geneviève," Mac managed to say, "I'm so sorry."

She gave him a tight smile. "No, maybe I'm sorry. I'm not sure I should have told you that story. But Mac, I wanted to let you know ... you don't have to hide your struggles from me. You're family. I'm not going to turn you away."

She was still looking at him. He had not expected to tumble into this conversation, he wasn't ready for it. He didn't—he didn't _talk_ about this.

Geneviève was so nice, and she was Taylor's mom, and she'd welcomed him into her home, and she wasn't _asking_ anything now, she was just sitting there, sipping her cocoa and watching him gently.

Geneviève wanted him to talk about his feelings.

Actually, maybe he could do this. The not-exactly-speed currently racing through his veins was making him feel both confident and reckless, and even though he _knew_ it was an artificial feeling, it made the self who had broken down in the ER this morning feel very remote.

"It's not like that," he said. "Not like your brother, I mean. Sorry. I didn't know him, but—I'm not actually sick. Some bad things happened when I was younger, and I have ... flashbacks. Sometimes. Usually it's just when I wake up from a bad dream, but today at the hospital, with the pain and the passing out..." He shrugged, one-shouldered. "And then they gave me something, a sedative, and I guess it really triggered me. I don't actually remember any of it, I had to hear about it from Vic later."

"The day we offered you this position," Geneviève said, "Vic talked to us very frankly about your history. I understand that you had asked him to, to make sure that we wouldn't feel blindsided later and possibly cut off your access to Taylor. He told us about the PTSD. He told us that you had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. He told us that you had attempted to take your own life, in the past."

"Um, yeah." Mac shot her a weak smile, which was the only thing he could think of to do. He was really grateful that he was high right now. "Frankly I'm a little surprised that you still gave me the job."

"We had already talked our way through to inviting a former triad gangster, a professional killer, to live in our house and look after our daughter," Geneviève pointed out a little dryly. "The additional information about your personal issues didn't seem like a deal-breaker, in comparison."

"Yeah, okay, I can see that," Mac said. He could, though he had to squint. Nearly everyone he'd ever known had been a gangster and/or a professional killer, so he had to make an effort to remember that for the vast majority of people, those were boogeyman words.

"But since the openness of that initial conversation, Vic's been covering for you," Geneviève said. "Which ... worries me."

Mac frowned down at his cooling cocoa. "Sorry," he said. "We shouldn't have hid what happened today. I think Vic was a little freaked out. The last time I had an episode that bad was a year ago." And that had happened because of injuries that reminded him of Michael too, come to think of it. When the cops had choked him out and broken his ribs.

He'd ended up in therapy with Reshmi, that time. She'd taught him a lot of good coping strategies. Maybe he'd been letting some of them slide, lately.

"In December," Geneviève said, "there were a lot of days when you didn't come out of the nanny suite and Vic told us that you weren't feeling well. I understand that because of the lung damage, you do get tired easily, and you have to be careful about illness, but—that isn't what it was, was it?"

Mac shook his head. Spun his cocoa mug around slowly in a circle, with his good hand. Geneviève was looking at him expectantly again, clear-eyed and calm. "It wasn't physical," he admitted. "It sort of _felt_ physical, but I know the difference. It felt like I was living in a fog, and everything was just ... too hard. Getting out of bed was too hard."

She nodded. "That sounds like depression, Mac."

The ceramic rim of the cocoa mug's base made a nice, gentle grinding sound as it rotated on the wooden surface of the table. "That's what Vic and Li Ann have been calling it," he said. "It doesn't make sense, though. I'm really happy here. My life has never been even _close_ to this good before. I've got Vic, and Taylor, and Li Ann—and nobody's trying to kill me."

"Somebody tried to kill you this morning," Geneviève pointed out.

Mac grimaced faintly. "That was a one-off. Hopefully."

Geneviève shrugged. "In any case—I don't think there's much point in trying to make _sense_ of depression. Sometimes it happens for a clear reason. Sometimes it comes along in the sheer _absence_ of a reason. I don't think that you're very used to a quiet life in which nobody's trying to kill you?"

"Not really," Mac agreed, a little ruefully.

"So was this—in December—this fog, these days when you couldn't get out of bed—did this take you by surprise? Or had you experienced anything like it before?"

Mac looked at her. She looked back at him, with a sort of analytical, dispassionate interest.

She was trying to understand what was going on with him. She cared about him, but she wasn't emotionally entangled the way that Vic and Li Ann were.

Maybe he could do this. Pull apart his feelings and present them to her in a way that would make sense of them. Put that sharp alertness from the not-exactly-speed to good use.

"In Hong Kong," he said. "When I was a teenager. Sometimes. Only Michael was never going to put up with that shit. He'd kick my ass right out of bed. Or sometimes if it was really bad he'd let me drink, but not very often."

"Michael..." Geneviève said. "That was your foster-brother? The one who tried to kill you last year?"

God, they really had successfully avoided talking about Michael with Geneviève and Huang, hadn't they? "Yeah," Mac said. "But we were also lovers. In Hong Kong."

"So you had Michael there to externalize your executive functioning when you needed it," she said. "Which maybe prevented you from sliding into longer depressive episodes."

Mac blinked, parsing that. Vic used some of those words when he'd been reading psychology books. "Sure," he said. "I mean, I guess Li Ann did the same thing when she came back at Christmas."

"Ah," Geneviève said, like Mac had just confirmed something that she'd privately been wondering about.

And suddenly Mac made a connection that he'd never made before. "Oh, maybe that's why I got so fucked up in prison."

Geneviève tilted her head slightly, looking at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, going to prison wasn't the worst thing in the world, theoretically," Mac said. "I was pretty sure that Li Ann had had time to get out of the factory before it blew up, and Michael's like a cockroach, I was _sure_ he would've made it out somehow. So I knew they were out there somewhere, and probably not together. I knew that eventually I'd go to trial, or maybe make a plea bargain—they couldn't keep me in prison forever, they didn't actually _have_ anything on me except for the fact that they'd pulled me out of that place. So I was out of the Tangs, I was safe for the moment, and I had a reasonable hope of seeing Li Ann again someday."

"Sorry, I think I'm missing something," Geneviève said. "What factory blew up?"

"Oh wow, I guess we've never told you that story," Mac said. "Yeah, getting caught in exploding buildings is kind of a _thing_ for Li Ann and me. I'm talking about when we ran from the Tangs. Michael caught us trying to steal money from the Tangs' arms-running operation, which was hidden under a noodle factory. Did you know that flour dust is explosive?"

"I'm an engineer," Geneviève reminded him, arching an eyebrow. "I can explain to you _why_ it's explosive."

"Really? Why?" Mac asked, momentarily distracted.

"Well, it can happen with any dispersed powdered combustible," she said. "When one particle burns it immediately ignites the adjacent particles. The rapid expansion of the flame front causes a strong pressure wave—that's the explosion."

Mac blinked. "Huh. You're scary in your own way, did you know that?"

She shot him a tight smile. "Depending on context, an engineer may be a lot more dangerous than an assassin. But that was first-year undergrad stuff—my specialty is electronics, and communications. Anyway, you were saying something about prison?"

"Yeah. Uh, you'd asked about the, uh, fog. If it had happened before." Actually he wasn't sure why he kept avoiding the d-word, given that everybody else was using it. Maybe because that made it sound like something that was really a _part_ of him, and not a passing cloud. "So, when I was in prison, that was the only time that it got ... really bad. I guess maybe because Michael and Li Ann weren't there to shake me out of it? Just me in that cell, with the four walls and a bed like a plank. For the first week I exercised a lot, everything that I could think of to do in a small space with no equipment. But then I just ... stopped."

Geneviève was listening quietly, holding her cocoa.

Mac took a breath. He could do it—he could talk about this. "The fog came, and I couldn't do anything, I just lay there all day staring at the walls and crying sometimes, and I told myself it made sense because hey, prison sucks, but—I mean, even in prison there's things you're supposed to do. I was supposed to shower, brush my teeth, walk around the exercise yard for an hour a day. There was one guard who'd hit me if I didn't perform on schedule, so when he was on shift I'd do the things. The other guys only yelled at me, though. I could just lie there and let that happen."

She regarded him evenly. "Yes. That does sound like a major depressive episode. So ... did it eventually pass? Or did it only end when you got recruited by the Agency?"

"No, it ended when I decided to kill myself." A bit of hot chocolate sloshed over the rim of the mug—he'd started spinning it too fast. He slowed it down. "Sorry. We probably shouldn't talk about that. Your brother—ah, it must be hard for you."

"I'm all right," she said quietly. "Thinking about my brother still makes me sad, but it's been fifteen years. I worked through my anger and grief a long time ago. Do you ... _want_ to talk about that decision that you made, in prison?"

Mac shook his head. "Not really. Only I felt _so much_ better after I'd made it. After that I had something to _do_. It took me months to set it up, I had to cultivate a guard, build up a stash, keep it hidden—I mean, also I started doing a bit of heroin. That made me feel a lot better, too."

"Okay," she said, and her voice was still even. "And what stopped you, that time?"

"Well, nothing," he said. "I took a massive overdose of heroin. I definitely would have died, except the Director already had her tendrils into me. She had somebody in the prison watching me, so I got pulled out and treated right away."

"You don't sound very happy to have been saved," Geneviève observed neutrally.

"I'm glad to be alive _now_ ," Mac quickly clarified. "But at the time, no. Getting saved _sucked_."

"Mac," Geneviève said, "have you been having any more thoughts about harming yourself? Recently?"

"What? No."

"I understand that if you have been," she said, "you might not find it easy to talk about. The reason I told you about my brother and my father was to try to reassure you that I won't judge you, I won't be upset with you." She tilted her head a little, maybe watching for a reaction. "I also understand that for most of your life you've been very isolated. I want you to realize that you're not alone, now. Vic and Li Ann care about you very much, obviously. Huang and I want you to be around to see Taylor grow up. If ever you start to feel like you don't know how to keep going, the most important thing is to _reach out_. We'll help you."

This was hard to listen to, but Mac thought he was doing pretty well. It helped that Geneviève's concerns were misplaced, at least as far as the suicide thing went. "Thanks," he said. "That's really nice of you. But I wasn't lying—I haven't actually wanted to kill myself since last year."

"Okay," she said carefully. "When, last year?"

Oh, right. It was only February, so 'last year' could technically mean December. Or January, if they were counting by the Lunar New Year. "A year ago," he clarified. "After Michael tried to kill me." He focused on the spinning mug. "Thing is, he didn't _just_ try to kill me. He really fucked with my head, first. He had a whole fucking _plot_ to win back my trust and _then_ betray me, just so that he could make sure it hurt as much as possible. So ... it worked. Other than the killing-me part—Vic and Li Ann got in the way of that. But it sure did hurt. And then the fucking bastard was _dead_ , so I couldn't even beat the shit out of him again for _fucking_ with me like that."

"Mac," Geneviève said quietly, "Shhh. We don't want to wake everybody."

Oops.

"Sorry," he said, bringing his voice back down. "But the point is—I got over that. I mean, not _over_ it, exactly, Michael still fucks me up. But now I've got Vic and Li Ann. When I get lost in the dark places now, they bring me back. So I'm not so scared anymore, of getting lost."

"I'm not sure what you mean by this 'getting lost'," Geneviève said. "Can you explain that, a little?"

"Um." His fingers were cramping, but it seemed important to keep spinning the mug. "I guess it's why they say I have PTSD. Sometimes I start remembering stuff, and I lose track of where I am in reality. Sometimes it's only a little, like I'll just forget where I put my phone because I started thinking about—about one of the things. Sometimes it's a lot worse. I get caught in a kind of thought-loop where I'm back in the place, and it's like I'm having that experience all over again, over and over and I can't break out of it. Mostly that only happens when I wake up from a nightmare, or—like today, because I was hurt and disoriented. Before I started dating Vic, when I had to deal with all that on my own—when it got bad, I'd drink. Because I just couldn't deal with it, you know? And drinking was a way to stop thinking about that stuff, at least for a while. Michael used to let me do that, too, when he saw that I needed it."

"And Vic doesn't," Geneviève inferred.

"No. Um, we had a fight about it once. He found a bottle of vodka that I'd hidden in my apartment, after—well, after he'd gotten rid of the last one. And we fought, because he thought I was going to hurt myself with the drinking, but I knew that if I didn't drink I might have to kill myself, instead."

"This was when?" Geneviève asked. She was only frowning slightly, she didn't seem shocked. So that was good. Because Mac realized he was really spilling his guts now, and he didn't think he could stop.

"In the time I was telling you about. Last year, after Michael died."

"And what happened? Between you and Vic?"

"Well, he was right and I was wrong," Mac admitted easily. And wow, that was an interested revelation. He didn't stop and _reflect_ on his life like this very often; his past was a minefield that he mostly preferred to ignore until it blew up in his face. "He gets me through the flashbacks. I don't have to drink."

"And how does that work?" Geneviève asked.

"He, uh, hugs me," Mac said. Oh, wow, that sounded lame when he said it out loud. "He holds onto me, he just doesn't let go. Even if I'm lost for a while I know I'm going to find my way back."

"And lately—in December, when you were coping with the depression for instance—have you had any feelings like you might need to turn to the alcohol again?" She tapped her fingers on the rim of her own empty mug. "Or the heroin?"

"I never, ever used heroin outside of prison," Mac promised quickly. Well, he could see why she'd worry. With the dead junkie brother. "And I haven't been drunk in a year, either."

"That's not what I asked," Geneviève said. "I didn't ask if you _have_ been using. I asked if you'd wanted to."

"Ah, why?" he asked, warily.

"Because being open _helps_ ," she said. "Keeping secrets takes energy and saps your resilience."

"My life depends on keeping secrets," Mac pointed out. "It always has. It still does."

"Hm," she said. "I suppose that's true. I'm sorry. I know that must be very difficult. Of course I keep secrets too, for work—I like the work but I don't love that aspect of it."

"You keep all kinds of secrets," Mac reminded her. "About the Agency. About me and Vic and Li Ann."

"Also true," she admitted. "That has been more stressful than I anticipated, when your Agency's Director first approached me with the prospect of adopting Taylor. It's far too late to back out now, though. And—well, now that we have to keep secrets from the world, I think that it's more important than ever to be open with each other. And you haven't answered my question."

He didn't have to ask her to repeat the question. He remembered.

Vic had been right, about not drinking. Geneviève was probably right now, about this. "Yes," he said. "I've been thinking about Michael a lot, lately. It's been ... that thing's been happening, where he just pops up in my head when I'm in the middle of doing something, and I lose some time, and I feel ... the things he used to make me feel. And I do, I want to drink to make it go away. Drink, or—yes, obviously, some codeine or ecstasy would be great. Heroin—I never, ever would. It is _way_ too fucking dangerous. But I remember how it felt, and it was, oh _god_ it was so good."

"Mac," Geneviève said, "would it be okay if I held your hand?"

He blinked, disconcerted. "Um. Sure?"

She reached across the table and laid her hand over his, stilling his fidget with the mug.

"Thank you for telling me that," she said. "I know it was asking a lot. Now I'd like to hold up my end of the bargain."

"Your end?" Mac repeated, confused.

"I said that you could be open about your struggles, and we'd offer you support. I'd like to figure out what I can do to help you now. For instance—we often have wine at dinner. Would it be better for you if we didn't?"

"Oh. Uh, no, it doesn't really matter. When I drank to black out, it was always a decision. It wasn't accidental. Having one drink doesn't make me more likely to do it."

"Okay," she said. "I'll trust your judgment on that. But about that _decision_ process—we do keep alcohol in the house. We're not big drinkers, but what with odds and ends of bottles we certainly have enough hard liquor on hand to send you to the emergency room. We keep the cabinet locked, but I understand that's irrelevant, given your skills. Should we clear out the liquor cabinet, for a while, until you're feeling more stable?"

The 'no' was on the tip of his tongue—he could _handle_ himself, he really could, he didn't need to be coddled like this—but Geneviève was watching him calmly, waiting for his response, and she was going to respect his decision either way, he could see that.

And when Patricia's shot wore off, the fog was going to come creeping back around the edges, and it was going to take everything he had to keep whisking it away. And his shoulder was throbbing with a reminder of Michael.

He swallowed. His throat was dry again. "Yeah," he said. "Actually. That might be good."

She regarded him levelly. Calm, no judgment. "Okay," she said. "Can it wait until morning, or would now be better?"

Oh. Well, he was going to be awake all night, and Geneviève was probably going back to bed soon, and he was nearly out of bubble wrap. "Now would be better," he said.

"Okay," she said. "We can do it together. And you can stop wearing a hole in the top of my table."

He trailed her out to the dining room, and watched her retrieve the key from its extremely obvious hiding place on the top of the liquor cabinet. "You'll want to move that when Taylor's a teenager," he remarked.

"My _hope_ ," Geneviève said, opening the cabinet, "is that by the time she's a teenager, we'll have established a firm foundation of honesty, trust, and responsible behaviour, and we won't _have_ to hide keys from her."

"Oh," Mac said. "Wow, your parenting is _really_ different from what I'm used to."

"I know," Geneviève said, and that was an awkward moment, because for the first time that night he was pretty sure he heard pity in her voice.

"Anyway, that's probably for the best," he said, to break the moment, "'cause I'm definitely going to teach her how to pick locks."

She handed him a bottle, and gave him a withering look that he was 90% sure was meant affectionately.

"What?" he said, hefting the bottle. "It's a useful skill."

"I suppose it is, at that," Geneviève said, balancing three bottles on her own arm. "We'll have to do two trips; you can't carry more than one, can you?"

He looked down at his sling. "No, I guess not."

He followed her back to the kitchen, and they set the bottles on the counter. Geneviève unscrewed the top of a bottle of rum, and upended it over the sink.

"Sorry about this," Mac said, rubbing his head sheepishly. "About the waste, I mean."

"Honestly, most of these have been sitting there for years," Geneviève said. "They're bottles we bought experimentally or received as gifts, and didn't like the taste of." She shrugged and reached for the gin. "I think there's only one bottle left. Could you go and get it?"

Mac padded off back to the dining room. There were two bottles left, actually—besides the tequila left in the middle of the top shelf, there was a vodka bottle tucked away at the back of the bottom shelf that Geneviève probably hadn't seen.

He had a fleeting thought that he could leave it there. Nobody would know.

Crap. If he was thinking that, he definitely needed to get rid of it.

With splayed fingers, he could carry both bottles with one hand. He brought them to the kitchen, and saw Geneviève just finishing emptying the last of the previous set.

"Here, this is the last of it," he said, lifting the bottles to show her.

And they slipped between his fingers and went flying.

The tequila bottle landed with a clunk and rolled. The vodka bottle shattered.

" _Tabarnak_ ," Geneviève swore. And then "Freeze!" sharply, to him, as he staggered backwards. "We're both in bare feet, and there's glass everywhere," she said. "We're going to have to be very, very careful. Mac, _why_ did you try to carry two bottles at once?"

"I thought it would be fine," he said, taking a step back so that he could balance himself against the table.

" _Stop_ moving," she said. "I can see glass behind you as well as in front."

"I'm not moving," he said. A glittering big shard caught his eye and he stepped forward to pick it up.

"Mac _stop_ ," Geneviève said again, with an edge in her voice. "Don't pick up broken glass with your bare hands, what the hell are you thinking?"

"Hm?" Mac frowned, and looked at the thin line of blood trickling down his thumb. "Oh, shit." He suddenly realized what was wrong. "Uh, full disclosure: I'm actually pretty high right now."

She stared at him. "What?!"

"It's not my fault!" he clarified quickly. "The Agency shrink gave me an upper to stop me from fainting while I was getting the stitches in."

Geneviève winced, and was clearly about to say something, but just then two sets of footsteps came hurrying down the stairs.

Vic and Li Ann, in just their underwear, came through the kitchen door looking ready for a fight.

"Stop!" Geneviève said quickly. "There's broken glass."

They both relaxed fractionally, but Mac could see them taking in the scene. "What happened here?" Vic asked, sounding wary.

Meanwhile, another set of footsteps. Huang rounded the door, blinking sleepily and wearing flannel pyjamas. "What's going on?"

Li Ann glanced at Huang and covered her breasts with her hands. "Is everybody okay?" she asked.

"A bottle got broken accidentally," Geneviève said, calmly. "We could use some help getting it cleaned up. Could the three of you go put shoes on, and get a broom and a mop?"

* * *

The cleanup was pretty fast, with three people doing it.

Geneviève kept Mac pinned with her gaze and ordered him to freeze whenever he twitched. Then Vic came back with jeans and shoes on—but still shirtless, which Mac appreciated aesthetically—and Geneviève told Vic to take the glass away from Mac and help him get up on the kitchen table to get clear of the cleanup.

The cut on Mac's thumb only needed a band-aid, it wasn't even enough blood to bother him.

Mac didn't hear Geneviève explaining the circumstances of the broken bottle to the others, but he inferred that she must have, because Li Ann didn't go back to bed. Vic did—he was going to have to get up with Taylor in the morning, so he needed the sleep—but Li Ann led Mac into the nanny suite's sitting room and brought out her Go set, which she'd left there, and played with him until about four in the morning, when the stimulant finally wore off.

It happened in between two moves. He was buzzing, and then he was crashing.

They'd been sitting on the floor, on either side of the coffee table.

"Sorry," he murmured, dropping his stone loosely in the middle of the board—not a legal move at _all_ —"I'm done."

Li Ann nodded, yawned, and started to stand up. "Okay. Call that one a draw. Let's go to bed."

"Too far," Mac murmured, managing a controlled tilt in the direction of the floor. He landed on his right side, which was the important thing. His limbs felt like lead.

Li Ann groaned. "Really, Mac? I can't carry you."

There was a carpet in the room. At least it wasn't bare floor. Mac closed his eyes. "Fine r'here," he mumbled vaguely. He couldn't quite remember where he was, but he assumed it was fine, if Li Ann was here.

He felt a soft weight settling over his body. A blanket—somebody had put a blanket over him.

And then there was a rustling and a new warmth in front of him. It was Li Ann, he knew her smell. He felt her hand along the side of his face, her thumb brushing his lips. Her knees pressing gently against his thighs. "Ugh, I can't believe this," she was muttering. "I'm going to be so stiff in the morning. The bed is _right there_."

His shoulder hurt and the bed he was on was weirdly hard, but he felt Li Ann's breath against his cheek and he knew everything was going to be okay. "G'night," he remembered to say. His tongue felt thick and heavy.

"Good night, Mac," she whispered. "I love you."

And then there was only dreamless sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

Mike seemed pretty surprised to see Mac at the gym Monday morning.

"How's the shoulder?" he asked.

"I'm supposed to keep the sling on for a couple of weeks, so the stitches don't rip," Mac said. "I can still fight, though. Just be careful not to hit me on that side."

Mike frowned. "What happened with Paul? Is he still out there?"

"Somewhere, yeah. But don't worry, I don't think we'll be seeing him again any time soon." It really sounded like Li Ann had ripped the Director a new one over the Friday incident—Mac wished he could have been a fly in the wall for that, _man_ —so Mac assumed that whatever the Director did with Paul after this, she'd at least keep him away from Mac.

And this was Mac's damn gym.

They warmed up first, and did some weights. Mac found that when he lifted with his right arm, the wound in his left shoulder did pull a bit uncomfortably, so he reduced the weight a bit. Legs, at least, he could do like normal.

He was on the leg press when he saw a woman come through the front door of the gym. That was fairly unusual—there wasn't a 'no girls allowed' sign out front, but there was sort of a vibe. The woman was South Asian, a little on the short side, and she had a lip ring. Her winter coat was black denim with a lot of safety pins stuck through it and a Metallica patch hand-sewn on the back.

Mac recognized her. He'd interviewed her in prison, once.

Also, he knew that Li Ann had recruited her for the Agency. So it looked like Paul was off this case and the Director had sent in her second-stringer.

Nasty went up to the desk and said something to the guy there. It wasn't Win today, it was one of the older guys—a bruiser in his forties with an ugly, acne-scarred face. There was a little back-and-forth, and then Nasty handed over a twenty and headed for the locker rooms.

"Okay," Mac said to Mike, standing up. "Ready for some sparring?"

They had to go light, of course—Mac couldn't put protective equipment on over the sling. That was okay. Mac had to work on adjusting to the imbalance of having an immobilized arm, anyway.

He also wanted to keep an eye on Nasty. As they sparred, he made sure to keep himself in position to see her.

She came out of the broom-closet-sized women's locker room after just a couple of minutes. She'd ditched the winter coat; she was still in jeans, and a t-shirt whose sleeves had been ripped off to turn it into a tank top. She had nearly full sleeves of tattoos on both arms; from this distance, Mac couldn't make out the details. She went straight from the women's locker room into the men's.

Another minute later, she came out. Then she wandered the perimeter of the gym, looking around a bit listlessly. She picked up a pair of free weights, did three bicep curls, and put them down again. She glanced over towards the front desk—the guy was watching a movie on the little TV they had there.

She looked straight at Mac, and her eyes widened. Oops.

Mac returned his attention to Mike, like he hadn't noticed the eye contact. He blocked a punch, and then, since that left him with no hands free, he spun around with a jump and kicked Mike in the belly. He stopped his foot at the last moment—just tapped him—but Mike staggered backwards anyway and acknowledged the hit with a nod and a rueful grin.

But meanwhile, Nasty had walked straight over to them.

Mac straightened up and checked his breathing. A little short, but he was okay. He gave Nasty a blank, _I-don't-know-who-you-are_ smile, and said, "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I think so," she said. "You're a cop, right?"

Oh, crap. Well, the guy at the desk couldn't hear her from here, but Mike certainly could. He was flashing Mac a puzzled look.

"Nope," Mac said.

"Sure you are," Nasty said, peering up at him intently. "You came and talked to me at Hewlitzer after Momo got fried." She grinned. "I did _not_ see a lot of men in those years. I remember your pretty face."

"Well, you've got my pretty face mixed up with somebody else's, lady," Mac said.

Her eyes widened. "Oh shit, are you _undercover_?" She whispered the last word, but it was a stage whisper.

Mac flashed Mike an _oh-my-god-what's-with-the-crazy-lady?_ look. "I am not now and never have been a cop," he said to her, slightly over-enunciating the words, like he thought she was slow.

She wrinkled her nose at him, but either she'd started doubting her memory or she finally took the hint, because then she shrugged and said, "Whatever. Does either of you know if there's another way into the basement?"

"What basement?" Mike said.

"You mean besides the cellar doors outside?" Mac said.

"Yeah, besides those," Nasty said.

"No, there isn't." Mac had scoped the whole place out carefully over his first couple of visits. "Why?"

She pulled back her lips in a tight grin. The lip ring flashed. "Well, Mr. Totally-Not-A-Cop, I think somebody's locked down there."

Mike looked startled. "Oh, shit. We'd better tell Shum." That was the name of the guy at the desk.

"Wait," Mac said quickly, touching Mike's wrist to forestall his movement.

Nasty was shaking her head, too, and making a _shhh_ sign like she'd finally remembered what 'discretion' was. "He's the one who locked her down there."

"Oh my god," Mike said, looking dismayed. "Are you sure?"

"Tell you what," Mac said to Nasty. "I'll come with you and check it out. We were pretty much done with our workout, anyway."

"The cellar doors've got a big-ass padlock on them," Nasty said. "Do you know where they keep the key?"

Mac rolled his eyes, but then remembered that nobody in this conversation knew that he was a lock-picking expert. "Just get your coat," he said. "Meet me in the alley in five minutes. I'll take care of the key."

"What are you doing?" Mike whispered, trailing him to the locker room. "If Shum's really kidnapped somebody and locked them in the basement, we should be calling the cops."

"Well, maybe it's nothing," Mac said. "That chick seemed a little weird, don't you think?"

Changing and showering was going to be hard with the sling and the bandages, so he'd been planning to do it at home anyway, with Vic's help. Mac quickly pulled on his socks, and then frowned at his boots. Vic had done the laces for him at home.

"Need a hand with that?" Mike asked, apparently noticing Mac's dilemma.

"Two hands, specifically," Mac said ruefully.

So Mike crouched down and got to work tying Mac's boots for him. Meanwhile, Mac pulled on the lavender wool poncho that he'd borrowed from Geneviève. It wasn't nearly as warm as his regular coat, but it was a lot easier to get on over the sling—and he'd taken a cab here, so it wasn't like he'd expected to spend a lot of time outdoors.

"What are you planning to do about the key?" Mike asked. "If Shum's actually got a woman locked in the basement, he's definitely not going to give it to you."

"I don't need a key," Mac said. "Do you have, like, a paperclip or something?"

"Not on me," Mike said, standing back up. "Why?"

"Don't worry about it. Thanks for the help," Mac said. He shouldered his gym bag. "See you tomorrow."

"What?" Mike said, quickly pulling on his own coat. "I'm not leaving you to deal with this alone."

"It'll be fine," Mac said. "I can take care of myself."

Okay, that was probably the wrong thing to say. Mike gave him a skeptical look up and down, taking in the poncho and the hidden sling. The frown that followed also implied an unspoken reference to Friday's events, with the getting stabbed and the fainting and the throwing up, and maybe a bit of an allusion to the several asthma attacks that Mike had watched Mac have in their time training together.

Mac could think of a _lot_ of things he could tell Mike about himself to reassure him that he was equipped to handle Nasty, a cellar door, and a woman possibly trapped in a basement—but nothing that he could say without blowing his cover.

He tried again on a different tack. "If anything's actually going on, I'll call 911. You should get home to your kids."

"No," Mike said, "This shouldn't take long. Let's stick together."

So, reluctantly, Mac left the gym with Mike trailing him. He stopped at the front desk and said to Shum, "Hey, can I borrow a paperclip?"

"Hm?" Shum barely looked up from his movie. "Uh, sure." He fished one out of the top desk drawer and handed it over.

Nasty was already waiting by the slanting cellar doors in the back alley. Mac took a careful look around for security cameras as he rounded the corner, but he didn't see any.

"Have you got the key?" she asked.

Mac held up the paperclip.

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Watch me." He grinned.

Actually, it was far from his most impressive showing of lock-picking prowess. The lock was pretty simple, but working one-handed in the cold was difficult. He started shivering before he'd finished, which slowed him down even more.

Still, he got it. He'd known he would. When the lock snapped open, Nasty clapped her hands.

" _Now_ I believe you're not a cop," she said.

Mike looked at him a little askance. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

Mac shrugged. "Misspent youth." He pocketed the lock, to make it less likely that somebody could lock _them_ inside if they went down there. Then he looked at the pair of heavy metal doors. "Uh, maybe you guys could do this next bit?"

Mike and Nasty went to either side, grasped the handles, and heaved in unison. Mac, meanwhile, stood a little off to the side—who knew what might come out of that hole.

The doors' rusty hinges screeched. Nasty dropped her side too soon, so it fell the rest of the way open with a thunderous bang.

Mac winced. "A little quieter would've been nice."

Nasty, meanwhile, was peering down into the hole. A set of concrete stairs descended. "Here we go," she said, and climbed down.

Mac followed her. Mike followed him.

The basement was littered with discarded old gym equipment and cleaning supplies. It was lit by several bare incandescent bulbs set in the ceiling. And there was a woman down there, all right. A girl, actually—she looked maybe fourteen or fifteen. She was sitting on a cot in the back corner of the basement. She was Asian, with long black hair that badly needed brushing. There was a red-glowing space heater next to the cot, but the basement was chilly—she was wearing a puffy pink parka.

As Mike came alongside Mac, forming a line with Mac and Nasty at the bottom of the stairs, the girl spoke.

"What's going on?" she said. "Shum said nobody would come for me until tonight."

She was speaking Cantonese. And looking at Mike.

"I'm sorry," Mike said, "I don't understand. Do you speak English?"

The girl looked blankly at Mike.

"Let's get her out of here," Nasty said.

Mike beckoned to the girl, and said, "Come with us, we'll take you somewhere safe." He knew she couldn't understand him, obviously—Mac guessed he was hoping the tone of voice and body language would do the trick.

The girl's gaze flicked briefly up and past them.

Mac had missed that cue on Friday, and ended up with a knife at his throat. He didn't miss it now.

He spun around and sideways, just in time to get out of the way of the grim-faced gangster running down the steps.

Shum had a gun in his outstretched hand. _That_ needed taking care of. Mac caught it with a snapping crescent kick, and it went flying.

Shum clenched the hand that had just been kicked into a fist, and swung it at Mac. Mac ducked.

"Oh my god!" Mike yelped.

Nasty had picked up a loose metal weight bar, and tried swinging it at Shum. But she missed, and nearly hit Mac.

Mac caught the bar with his right hand, and snapped it away from her. "Thanks," he said, tossing it a little to find the balance. It weighed fifteen pounds—it would be better as a two-handed weapon rather than one-handed. But you worked with what you had.

Shum had grabbed a broken metal chair. He held it in front of himself like a shield, and thrust it at Mac. Mac hit it with the end of the weight bar, jousting. He backed up a little, quick glances to be careful of his footing.

Nasty yelled and threw something at Shum. Soft, leather—an old boxing glove. It hit his temple.

It couldn't have hurt him, but he flinched—and that gave Mac time to smack his other temple with the end of the weight bar.

Shum went down.

"Oh my _god_ ," Mike said again, pale-faced, staring at Shum.

And then the girl's voice cut through the room: a sharp, panicky "Nobody move!" in Cantonese.

She had the gun. She was pointing it at Mike.

"Uh oh," Nasty said.

The barrel of the gun briefly pointed in Nasty's direction, and then it was back to Mike. The girl yelled, "Nobody _fucking_ move. I'm walking out of here. If you fucking try to touch me, I will _fucking kill_ you."

Mike and Nasty raised their hands. Gently, gently, keeping unaggressive eye contact, Mac lowered the metal weight bar to the floor and then stood up and raised his good hand.

"Both hands!" she shouted at Mac, the gun pointing at him now. "Where I can see them!"

"We don't understand," Mike said, eyes wide, hands in the air. "Please put the gun down. Nobody's going to hurt you."

The girl lifted the gun and pulled the trigger. The shot went high, over Mac's shoulder. She'd missed on purpose—it had been a warning shot. The gun was back to pointing at Mac's chest. "Drop whatever you've got under there and get on the floor!" she shouted, her voice edging up towards hysteria.

Okay, there really wasn't any other way out of this. "Don't shoot," he said in Cantonese. "I don't have anything under the poncho, it's just that my arm's hurt. Look, I'll show you."

Very slowly, very carefully, he used his right hand to flip back the hem of the poncho, and show her the sling.

Mike and Nasty were staring at him.

"Since when do _you_ speak Chinese?" Mike asked.

"Since I grew up in Hong Kong," Mac said. "Sorry. It wasn't something I wanted to talk about."

The girl gestured with the gun. "You're going to let me walk out of here now."

"Sure, okay, if you want," Mac said, easing a little to the side so that she had more of an open path to the door. "But actually we're here to rescue you, anyway. And I'm not sure where you're planning to go out there. Do you know where you are?"

"New York," she said.

"Ah, no. Well, close, sort of. You're in Toronto."

She looked a little worried, but she didn't lower the gun. She didn't move, either. "Where's that?"

"Canada," he said. "You're a little far from home. You're from Hong Kong, right?"

She nodded. He'd known she was, anyway, by her accent.

"Does anybody know you're here?"

"He does," she said, nodding at Shum. "Some other men."

"Do you want to go home?"

She shook her head, looking scared. "I can't go home."

"Okay, then we won't send you home," Mac said. "But we'll get you out of here, and we'll bring you somewhere safe. What's your name, by the way?"

"Li Jing," she said, eyeing him warily. She didn't lower the gun.

"I'm Mac," he said. "And this is Mike, and this is Nasty." He didn't translate the nickname, he just said it in English. He saw Nasty give him a quick, startled look—she wasn't understanding what he was saying, but she would have caught her name.

And she hadn't _told_ him her name.

She didn't say anything, which hopefully meant that she was finally managing to think like an Agency employee, and look for layers of deception in everything.

"You'll really get me out of here?" Li Jing asked.

"Yes," Mac promised. "We beat up Shum for you, didn't we? Just give me the gun." He tried to look as non-threatening as possible. He figured his girly poncho and his sling were probably working in his favour, as far as that went.

Li Jing's expression softened—crumpled, really. She extended her hand—not pointing the gun anymore, but offering it. Her hand was very visibly shaking. "Okay," she said.

Mac moved forward slowly and took the gun.

"Great," he said, checking it. "Now let's get out of here."

Sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. Three quick gunshots.

Shum was awake, firing from the floor. Mac hadn't thought to frisk him after he went down. Rookie mistake, Ramsey. _Fuck_.

"Down!" Mac yelled in warning to the others, redundantly. And then he remembered to repeat it in English, while he dropped behind a filing cabinet.

Shots pinged into the metal of the cabinet. _Through_ it, actually, but over his head.

A pause. Shum was probably getting to his feet.

Mac popped out of his crouch, gun arm extended, and fired. Four shots in quick succession and then the gun clicked empty. But he'd hit Shum with all four—chest, chest, neck, head.

Nasty shrieked, but it wasn't a _scared_ shriek. It was a roller-coaster shriek.

"Is anybody hit?" Mac asked, looking around quickly.

Li Jing was curled in a ball under the cot, trembling, but she wasn't hurt. Nasty was fine. Mike was very pale, but he hadn't been hit.

"We—we have to call 911," Mike said.

"Later," Mac said. "We've got to get out of here. We don't know if he had backup, and we just made a _lot_ of noise."

"But—" Mike looked at Shum. "He needs an ambulance."

Shum didn't need an ambulance—he was dead. But Mac decided not to press the point. "You can call from your car," he said. "Let's go."

He coaxed Li Jing out from under the cot. She wanted to take his hand and cling to it, but he transferred her to Nasty, because he needed his one hand free.

He put the empty gun in his gym bag, and retrieved the second one from Shum. Bracing it with his sling-hand, he popped its clip out to check it—it still had two rounds left. He re-loaded it, engaged the safety, and stuck it in the waistband of his workout pants, under the poncho.

Mike watched him wide-eyed, but didn't say anything.

Outside, Mac contemplated re-closing the cellar doors, but thought Mike would probably balk at that. "Where are you parked?" he asked Nasty.

"What? Uh, I took a cab. I don't have a car yet, I'm still on probation."

Oh, right. Mac remembered _that_ idiotic Agency policy that had left him carpooling with Vic for four months.

Well, he'd enjoyed the rides. Needling Vic had always been a good time, and from the evidence of later events, they'd really bonded.

But this presented them with a problem. "I took a cab too," Mac mentioned.

"My car's right there," Mike said, pointing at the end of the alley.

Mac had really been hoping to ditch Mike—the poor guy was already in this _way_ too deep—but it looked like that wasn't happening yet. "Okay, let's go," Mac said, checking both ways down the alley and then taking the lead.

They made it to the car without incident. The women went in the back; Mac took shotgun. Mike turned the ignition with an unsteady hand.

"Mac, you've got to call 911," Mike said, pulling them out into traffic. " _Now_."

Mike's cell phone was in its holder on the dashboard. Mac popped it out and then tossed it back to Nasty—mostly to get it farther from Mike. "You do it," he said. "Ask for Officer Dobrinsky. He knows me."

Her eyes widened, and if she hadn't figured it out before, _surely_ she did now.

"Yeah, hi," Nasty said into the phone. "I've got a situation for the police. You got an Officer Dobrinsky there?"

"The _ambulance_ ," Mike stressed.

"Right, right," Nasty said. "Okay, listen, a man's been shot." She gave the address of the gym. "He was trying to shoot _us_ , so we kind of had to leave him there, sorry. Yeah, and we've got a girl with us, we think she was being held prisoner. She doesn't speak English." She put the phone down for a moment. "Where do we want him to meet us?" she asked.

Mac thought quickly. It would be better to get out of Agincourt. And Dobrinksy could meet them faster if they got closer to downtown. "The Starbucks in Victoria Village," he said.


	13. Chapter 13

The Starbucks was festooned with pink and red bunting, and there was a special sale on heart-shaped cookies. It was Valentine's Day, Mac realized. Right. Okay, that was irrelevant.

Li Jing got him to translate everything on the menu for her, and then she wanted a heart-shaped cookie and an iced green tea lemonade.

Nasty had a black coffee. Mike had an English Breakfast tea. Mac got a tall skim milk latte for himself.

They sat.

"Ask her why she was locked in the basement," Nasty said.

"Careful, go easy on her," Mike said. "We have no idea what she's been through."

Mac looked at Li Jing. Her shoulders were hunched into her puffy pink coat, and she was nibbling her cookie, looking around the coffee shop warily.

"Hi," he said. "You want to tell me what's going on, now?"

"You don't know?" she said. "Who _are_ you?"

"Nasty saw you getting locked in the basement," Mac said, evading her question. "We thought we'd better get you out."

"Oh," she said.

"Why did Shum put you down there?" Mac asked.

"I don't know, he said it was just for a few days," she said. "He was going to get me a better place."

"Has she told you anything yet?" Nasty asked.

"Ask her where her parents are," Mike said.

Parents. _That_ wasn't a question that had occurred to Mac. And he thought he'd better not ask it, at least not yet—she hadn't reacted well, earlier, to the idea of going back to Hong Kong. "Hang on guys," he said in English. "I'm trying to build up a little trust." And then, in Cantonese, "Did you know Shum very well?"

"No," she said. "He met me at the airport."

"The airport—" Mac repeated. "Two days ago?"

She nodded.

" _You_ were the seven-thirty shipment from Hong Kong," he realized.

She looked at him, puzzled.

"Did you bring anything with you?" he asked. "On the plane? A package, maybe? Or did they make you swallow something?"

She shook her head, like the question confused her.

Probably not a drug mule, then.

"Do you know why you're here? In Canada, I mean?"

"To work," she said, and hunched farther into her coat. Finished the cookie.

"For Shum?"

She nodded.

"Doing what?"

She just looked at him.

Oh, shit. Mac had a guess. "Did you have to work last night?" he asked, gently but not _too_ gently.

Her lip trembled a little, and she nodded again.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen," she said, with an edge of defiance that meant she was probably rounding up.

"Guys," he said quietly in English, "I think she was brought over from Hong Kong for prostitution. And we just killed her pimp."

Nasty took that in with barely a flicker of expression. Mike looked aghast. "Have you asked her about her parents?" he said.

Mac shook his head. "I think we'd better leave that one for the police."

"I need to go to the toilet," Li Jing said.

Mac translated, and said to Nasty, "You should go with her."

He hoped that the _make sure she doesn't run away or kill herself_ was implied.

Once they were alone at the table, Mike shot Mac a haunted look. "She doesn't look any older than Katie," he said.

Katie was Mike's oldest; she was fifteen. "I think she's younger, actually," Mac said.

Mike leaned in and spoke even more quietly than they had been. "Mac, when the police get here, we're going to be completely honest with them, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Mac said. "Sure."

"It was clear self defence when you shot that guy." He was whispering now, with an uneasy look around the cafe. "I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Right," Mac said. "I'm not worried."

"You have to give them the guns," Mike whispered.

"Oh, right," Mac said. "Yeah, I was going to."

"Okay," Mike whispered, and sat back.

After that, Mike seemed to want to sit quietly and drink his tea, with distant eyes. Mac let him.

When Nasty and Li Jing came back from the bathroom, several minutes later, Li Jing was red-eyed and clinging to Nasty.

"She has some bruises," Nasty said, tersely.

Mac nodded. It wasn't surprising.

"Oh my god," Mike murmured, sounding distressed. Well, he was probably thinking about Katie.

Li Jing wanted another cookie. Mac bought it for her.

Not long after that, Dobrinsky and Jackie walked through the door. Jackie—impressively, given the short notice—was wearing a very official-looking police uniform. Dobrinsky was in plainclothes, but had a badge on a lanyard around his neck. Mac waved them over. "Thanks for coming, Officer Dobrinsky," he said. "I guess you'll want to hear what happened?"

"Yeah," Dobrinsky said, eyeing him and Nasty. "I do. Come on outside."

Li Jing, meanwhile, was looking freaked out—half out of her chair, and ready to bolt. "I can't talk to the police," she said frantically to Mac.

Uh oh. "Don't worry," he said. "They're not really police."

The look she gave him was wild and confused. And not at all reassured.

Okay, maybe that wasn't the right way to play this. "Er, I mean they're a special _kind_ of police," he said. "They're definitely not going to arrest you. You're not in any trouble—no matter what you've done." He felt confident promising that. Even if Li Jing had killed somebody, which seemed unlikely, he was sure the Director would be willing to overlook it.

More likely, Li Jing was just worried that she'd get in trouble for being in the country illegally, and maybe for the prostitution. Shum had probably told her that she'd be arrested if she went to the police.

Mac remembered being in that kind of situation, when his dad left him in Hong Kong.

"Are you sure?" she said.

"Yes," he said. "I promise."

So she let Nasty lead her out of the coffee shop in the wake of the two 'cops'. Mac and Mike followed.

Dobrinsky stood them all on a street corner, next to an illegally-parked car that was presumably his—it had a dormant police flasher sitting on the dashboard. "Okay, folks," he said. "What's going on?"

Nasty and Mike let Mac take the lead in telling the story, although Nasty jumped in with a lot of colour commentary. The story was a performance for Mike, of course—Dobrinsky knew perfectly well that Nasty wasn't a random concerned citizen who'd seen something suspicious and decided to check it out, and that Mac wasn't just some guy who'd happened to be working out at the gym.

Mac handed over the guns when he got to that part of the story, to Mike's visible relief.

"She hasn't said very much," Mac said, referring now to Li Jing. "She flew in from Hong Kong on Saturday. I think Shum had her turning tricks last night, but she hasn't said so in so many words, so I might be misreading that." He didn't think he was, but with the Agency's cases you always had to keep an open mind—a good fraction of them took a turn for the bizarre.

"Okay," Dobrinsky said. "We'll take it from here." He opened the back door of the car, and gestured to Li Jing.

Li Jing shook her head wildly, and clung to Nasty's arm.

"Hey, maybe I should come along," Nasty said. "Just so she doesn't freak out."

"Yeah, okay, that'd be fine," Dobrinsky said. Jackie just lifted an eyebrow and twirled her hair.

"Mac's the only one who can talk to her," Mike pointed out.

"We have a translator at the station," Dobrinsky said.

Since the police station was fictional, Mac assumed for a moment that the translator was too—but then he realized that Dobrinsky was probably thinking of Li Ann.

Li Jing would definitely be okay if she had Li Ann looking out for her.

"I'll explain it to her," Mac said. And so he did. He explained to Li Jing that Nasty would ride with her to keep her safe. "They're going to bring you to a government building," he said. "My sister works there. Her name is Li Ann. You'll be able to talk to her, and she'll make sure you're okay. You can trust her."

"Your ... sister?" Li Jing asked, looking uncertain.

"My foster-sister," he remembered to clarify. "She's Chinese, not white like me. You just remember her name, so you can ask for her if they don't bring you to her right away. It's kind of a weird place—you probably shouldn't really trust anybody _else_ there. But if you stick with Li Ann, you'll be all right. I'll see you again soon, maybe, okay?"

Li Jing nodded—overwhelmed and fearful, obviously, but managing a stiff upper lip. She let Nasty usher her into the back of Dobrinsky's car.

"So, I guess you'll want us to follow you back to the station?" Mike said to Dobrinsky, looking uncertain.

"Nah, you've done enough for today," Dobrinsky said, giving him a companionable pat on the shoulder. "We've got your contact info—we'll call you when we need you."

Dobrinsky and Jackie got in the car; Jackie flipped Mac a little wave, but didn't say anything. And then they were gone.

"Uh, wow," Mike said, standing there dumbly. "That's _it_?"

"We told them everything we knew," Mac said, with a shrug. A kind of shivery shrug, actually—for the past ten minutes he'd been clenching his teeth to stop them from chattering. Geneviève's poncho was meant for fall, not the dead of fucking Canadian winter. He wanted to go home. "See you tomorrow?"

Mike stared at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"Nobody knows we were involved in all that," Mac pointed out. "It'll be fine."

Mike opened his mouth. Closed it again. Frowned. Said, "How about I give you a ride home."

* * *

Back in Mike's car, Mac turned the heater to full blast without asking permission.

Mike didn't say anything at first, other than to ask Mac's address. Mac was happy enough to sit quietly and wait for his teeth to stop wanting to chatter.

He had to sneeze. He stifled it silently with the back of his fist, which hurt his throat—Vic would scold him, if he were here.

Oh, shit, _Vic_. Mac usually got home from the gym by eight in the morning, and it was nearly nine by the clock on Mike's dashboard. Vic was probably worried.

Mac thought about asking to borrow Mike's cell phone—he'd left his own at home—but it would be hard to answer Vic's questions with Mike listening in, and he'd be home in fifteen minutes anyway. Better to just explain himself in person, maybe.

"So you grew up in Hong Kong," Mike said finally.

Oh, they were going to have _this_ conversation. Oops. Mac tried to gather his thoughts and remember which version of his cover story he was supposed to be using here. "Yeah," he said.

"You speak Chinese."

"Cantonese fluently," Mac said. "My Mandarin is crappy."

"On Friday, when your step-brother came to the gym, you pretended that you couldn't."

"Uh, yeah."

Silence. Okay, Mike probably wanted some kind of explanation.

"I overheard some things when I first joined the gym," Mac said. "I thought it would be better if nobody knew I'd understood them."

"So you _knew_ there was something criminal going on? And you didn't say anything?"

Mac shrugged, one-shouldered. "I didn't know it was anything like this. I thought maybe somebody was dealing out the back."

"You still could've said something to me," Mike said.

"I didn't know _you_ ," Mac said. Which didn't have anything to do with why he hadn't said anything, but he figured it sounded plausible.

Anyway, Mike nodded. Looked thoughtful. Didn't say anything else for a bit, while he got them onto the highway.

Mac had to sneeze again. This time he didn't stifle it, just muffled it against his good elbow.

"Bless you," Mike said absently. "There's tissues in the glove compartment."

A battered tissue box, the car's insurance and user manual, and a sheet of sparkly pink unicorn stickers. That's what was in Mike's glove compartment.

In Mac's car, back when he'd had a car, there would have been a gun.

He fished out a tissue and discreetly but awkwardly blew his nose. Everything was harder with only one hand. Thanks a lot, Paul.

Mike didn't say anything else, other than asking for directions again once they got off the highway, until they were pulling up in front of the Bouchard-Wongs' house.

Then he put on the parking brake without turning off the ignition, and said, "You killed a man."

"Yeah," Mac said cautiously, stopping with his hand on the door handle.

"It ... it didn't look like it bothered you very much."

Oh, maybe Mac should've pretended to be a bit more affected by all the stuff that had happened this morning. Shit. Well, too late now. "No," Mac said. "Well, he _was_ trying to shoot us."

"And with the guns ... you really knew what you were doing."

"Sure," Mac said. "I've, ah, used guns before."

"Have you killed people before?"

Mac let that one hang in the air for a moment while he tried to figure out what the hell to say. He could say 'no', but he didn't think that Mike would believe him.

" _Have_ you?" Mike's voice was rising, and he was gripping the steering wheel hard, looking at Mac a little wildly now.

Okay, Mike really needed some kind of explanation, fast. _Don't mention the Agency don't mention the Agency don't mention the Agency._ The military? Fuck, no, there was all that discipline shit and all those ranks and protocols—Mac could never pull that one off.

"I used to run with a triad," he said. "Back in Hong Kong."

Mike went pale, but—oddly—he also relaxed. Like Mac had just confirmed exactly what he'd been thinking, and now the worst was out in the open.

"Used to?" he said.

Mac nodded. "Used to," he repeated emphatically. "I got out. Really, _really_ out. I helped the police take down a bunch of my former associates. Those bridges are _burnt_."

"That's how you knew Detective Dobrinsky," Mike said.

Oh, great detail! Mac nodded sagely.

"Mac..." Mike said then, in a small voice, "Are my wife and kids in danger?"

"What? No, why would they be?"

"I just ... I mean, did I just fuck over a triad?" Mike sounded so scared.

Mac looked at him, and tried to adjust his thinking. Mike was a guy who kept unicorn stickers in his glove compartment instead of a gun. Maybe he watched movies sometimes where the triads were the villains. Maybe he caught a story about organized crime in the news once in a while, and shuddered and moved on. Now he was caught up in something dangerous for the first time in his life, and he had no frame of reference to understand how bad it was, or wasn't.

"No," Mac said. "Those guys at the gym are small-time thugs. I've been paying attention—if there'd been a whiff of an actual triad being involved, I would've faded away." Mostly true. He certainly didn't want to risk running into anyone who'd survived the destruction of the Tangs, and who might recognize him.

(Other than Paul, obviously. Who _had_ tried to kill him, so there was that.)

Mike didn't look very comforted. "Okay," he said. "Okay." He was just repeating the word; he was clearly _not_ okay.

"Hey, do you want to come in for coffee, and talk about this some more?" Mac offered, spontaneously.

Not that _talking more_ was necessarily a good idea. But Mike already knew a whole lot of things that he shouldn't, and maybe it was time for damage control. At least maybe Mac could manage to calm him down before he had to see his wife and kids again.

Mike clenched and unclenched his hands around the steering wheel, and then gave a sharp nod. "Sure," he said. "Let's talk."

* * *

Vic appeared as soon as Mac came through the front door—he looked stressed. "Mac, where the hell have you been?"

"Mike and I went out for coffee," Mac said, which was true, as far as it went. "Some stuff came up." Also true. "Everything's fine, though." Sort of true? "We should probably talk later." Yeah, he wasn't getting out of that one. Li Ann probably knew everything by now, and she'd tell Vic. "Don't you have to get going to toddler yoga, though?"

Vic shook his head. "I'm keeping her home today, since she has that cold."

Taylor had been a little sick since Saturday. "How's she doing?" Mac asked.

"She slept in a bit, and she's cranky," Vic said. "Fine other than that. She's watching cartoons right now. Um, hi Mike."

"Hi," Mike said. "Where's your bathroom?"

"Down the hall to the right," Vic pointed.

"Thanks." Mike walked briskly past them—without taking his coat or his snowy boots off—and disappeared into the bathroom.

A moment later, they could hear him throwing up.

Vic shot Mac a look that was somehow both wide-eyed and suspicious. " _What_ is going on?"

"Some Agency stuff went down at the gym," Mac said. "Mike got caught up in it. He's sort of freaking out."

Vic winced. "Is anybody hurt?"

"No," Mac said. "Well, I killed a guy."

"In front of Mike?"

Mac nodded.

"Oh _fuck_ ," Vic said. "You have to call the Director."

"Already taken care of. Dobrinsky and Jackie came and pretended to be cops." In the bathroom, the toilet flushed and the sink ran. "Just follow my lead," Mac said quickly.

"Sorry," Mike said, coming out of the bathroom. He looked a little grey. He glanced back down the hall, at the melting puddles of slush he'd left on the hall floor. "Sorry," he said again.

"It's okay, I'll mop it later," Vic said. "Mac just told me what happened."

"He did?" Mike said, looking a little surprised, and relieved.

"Yeah. So how about you come into the kitchen, and sit down."

Mac didn't bother to take off his own boots—the floor was already a mess—but he did shed the poncho. Then he put a hand on Mike's elbow and guided him into the kitchen.

The door to the basement was open, and Mac could faintly hear _The Little Mermaid_ going in the downstairs playroom.

"Coffee? Tea?" Vic asked.

"Tea," Mike said, sinking heavily into one of the kitchen chairs. "So you know ... everything?"

"I didn't have time to tell him the whole story," Mac said. "Just about what happened with Shum. I hadn't gotten to Li Jing yet."

"Li Jing?" Vic said.

"But does he know what you told me just now in the car?" Mike asked, cautiously.

Oh, hey, Mike wasn't terrible at this discretion thing. He was better than Nasty, anyway. "Yes," Mac said. "Vic knows that I used to be in a gang in Hong Kong. _He_ used to be a cop," Mac added, since that was consistently part of the background story they used for Vic, and maybe it would reassure Mike. Mike seemed like a guy who trusted cops.

Vic, meanwhile, was giving Mac a sharp _What the fuck are you doing, Mac?_ look—Mac was pretty familiar with that one. But he just repeated, "Li Jing?"

"Okay, yeah." So then Mac ran through the whole story again—the same version he'd given Dobrinsky, since the real audience in both cases was Mike.

When Mac narrated the fight with Shum, Vic's lips pressed together and went sort of white. And at the end of it, he stood up from his chair and went over to Mac and wrapped his arms around him, and Mac could feel him shaking a little. Which was unexpected, since it hadn't been _that_ much of a fight. But he felt Vic's cheek pressing against the top of his head, and Vic let out a breathy " _Fuck_ , Mac," which was halfway into a sob.

Mac felt a little weird, having Mike see this. "I'm fine," he pointed out.

"You had one arm literally tied behind your back," Vic said—his tone was getting a little high-pitched, just a tiny bit hysterical. And he was squeezing Mac harder, but being careful of his shoulder.

"Well, _literally_ it was tied in front of me," Mac pointed out. "I could use it to re-load a gun. And I had Nasty and Mike there for backup."

"I did nothing in that fight," Mike said, faintly.

"But you could have," Mac said. "If I'd gone down."

"Fuck, Mac," Vic said. "Don't—don't even talk about that. I ... can't."

Mac couldn't really understand why Vic was taking this so hard—but Mike was looking at Vic like his reaction made sense, Mike was _nodding_ even, and maybe watching Vic be not-okay was helping Mike pull it together himself.

Speaking of which—"Out in the car, Mike told me he was scared of getting in trouble with the gang," Mac mentioned. He had an idea about that. "Vic, maybe you could ask some of your old friends to keep an ear to the ground, make sure nobody's making any kind of noise about him?"

Vic gave Mac one last squeeze and retreated back to his seat. He frowned, clearly taking a moment to think through Mac's code phrases, and then nodded. "Sure, I could do that."

In fact, if they were going to find out anything about how the case progressed from this point onward, it would be from Li Ann. But Mac imagined that Mike would find it comforting to think that a network of cops had his back.

"And I'll keep an ear out at the gym," Mac said.

Mike and Vic both stared at him.

"We are _not_ going back to that gym," Mike said.

"That's exactly what I was going to say," Vic agreed. "Actually, that's what I've been saying _all along_ , and I was right, wasn't I?"

"If I hadn't been there," Mac felt it was important to point out, "Li Jing would still be locked in the basement."

Well, Vic certainly couldn't argue that a fourteen-year-old girl should have been left to her fate. But he made a stubborn face. "Okay, but now she's been rescued. Done. And the proper authorities can handle it from here."

Mac wanted to snort at hearing the Agency called 'the proper authorities', even though he knew Vic was just keeping up the cover story for Mike. "I can't stop going to the gym," he said. "I need it."

"There are other gyms," Mike said. "Gyms _without_ crime."

"Yeah, but it's not the same," Mac said. "I'm not going to do thirty minutes on a fucking Stairmaster. I need to fight."

"That's a want, not a need," Vic said. " _I_ work out at the Y. It's fine."

"No, it's—" Shit. He looked at Mike and Vic.

Geneviève thought that being open about his ( _oh-shit-the-phrase-was-mental-illness_ ) being open about his stuff would help him. Would help his friends help him.

He had a mug of tea. Vic had brought it to him at the start of conversation. He fidgeted it in a circle, watching the ripples on the surface of the liquid. He remembered spinning his mug the whole time he'd talked to Geneviève, after the hospital. And that had gone okay, in the end.

"I think I have to fight," Mac said. "Because otherwise I can't hold off the depression."

"You have depression?" Mike asked, looking concerned.

"I mean ... yeah," Mac said. Spinning the mug. "I do. And it can get really bad. It _was_ really bad, before I started working out with you."

"Well, we could work out together somewhere else," Mike said. "I can find us a good new place."

"Really?" Mac lit up with a surprised grin, stilling his hand on the mug. "Because, er—after today I thought you might not want to see me anymore."

"No," Mike said quickly. "I mean, you didn't do anything _wrong_. Other than lying about your past, I guess, but I can see why you'd want to keep that under wraps."

"Ah, speaking of that..." Vic said, "What are you planning to tell your wife?"

Mike looked surprised at the question, and then momentarily dismayed. "I don't keep secrets from her."

"That's ... commendable," Vic said carefully, scratching his cheek.

Mac thought it was _implausible_ , but maybe that was just his damage talking. Anyway, he had very few secrets from Vic or Li Ann these days.

"You understand, it's safer for Mac if people generally _don't_ know about his history," Vic said.

Mike's eyes widened, and he nodded. "Of course, yes, that makes sense. Don't worry, Jada wouldn't say anything to anybody."

"And your kids?" Vic asked.

"I don't plan to tell them anything about this," Mike said. "It would only scare them. I didn't even tell them about what happened on Friday." Then he looked back at Mac—glanced down at Mac's sling, like he'd just remembered its significance. " _Shit_ ," he said. "Your step-brother. He's still out there. Is _he_ connected to the triads?"

"Not anymore," Mac said easily, locking eyes to keep Mike's attention away from Vic's transparent wince. "You don't have to worry about him. He's mad at me, but he'll get over it."

"So listen, you'll tell us when you've found a safe gym for you and Mac to switch over to?" Vic jumped in, bringing them back to the practical part of the conversation. "Maybe one of those nice quiet ones where the old people do Tai Chi?"

"Yeah," Mike said. "I'll do that."

* * *

Mike seemed a lot calmer by the time he left.

Mac and Vic went down to the basement, where Taylor had been left alone for too long already.

She was snuggled in a blanket on the couch, holding Gaga the doll and sucking her thumb, hypnotized by _The Little Mermaid_. When Mac sat next to her, she crawled into his lap with a contented sigh and closed her eyes.

Mac felt her forehead. "Is she still a little warm?"

Vic muted the movie. "I checked with the thermometer about an hour ago," he said. "She's okay. Extra naps are good, though." He fussed with the blanket a little, getting it wrapped around Mac's shoulders too. Mac was glad to have it— he was still feeling a little chilled from earlier.

Then Vic settled next to Mac—on the right, since Taylor's legs were trailing off to the left. Fortunately, that meant that Vic wasn't up against the hurt shoulder. He leaned into Mac, and brushed a kiss against his neck. "Fuck," he said quietly. "We were supposed to be _safe_ now."

"I'm safe," Mac said. "It's all over. Everything's fine."

Vic just shook his head. " _How_ do you keep getting into these situations?"

"I mean, it wasn't really a _situation_ ," Mac said. "Just a little Agency spillover. Nasty came to me for help because she thought _I_ was a cop—that's ironic, huh? She remembered me from when we questioned her about Momo."

"You got shot at," Vic said. "You had to kill somebody."

"So?" Mac said. "One incident in three months. That's nothing. Back when we were agents, that would have been a quiet Tuesday."

"If I'd been there with you..." Vic trailed off, rubbing Mac's arm.

"Hm?" Mac said after a moment, since that hadn't _sounded_ like the end of a sentence.

"I couldn't have done it," Vic said. "I couldn't have handled that fight."

"What are you talking about?" Mac said. "Shum wasn't exactly an A-grade gangster. He couldn't even hit the _civilians_."

Vic shook his head. "Remember the Hells Angels?"

"Yeah," Mac said, and found he was out of flippant responses.

They hadn't talked about that since the day that it happened.

Or about the fact that of the two of them, it was actually Vic who'd been punted out of the Agency due to psychological damage.

"Does it still ... bother you?" Mac asked. He really wasn't sure how to phrase it.

"More than ever," Vic said quietly. "Now, when I think about being in a fight, all I can imagine is falling apart."

Mac disentangled his right arm from the blankets so that he could hug Vic. "It's okay," he said. "I think you're better at staying out of trouble than I am."

Vic gave a sharp, choking laugh. "Me and 99.99% of the world's population, Mac."

"I'll try harder," Mac promised. "I'm still trying to get the hang of this living-like-a-normal-person thing."

"Yeah," Vic said. "You've really never done this before, have you? Ever." He rubbed Mac's thigh, absently. "I wish you hadn't told Mike you were ex-triad. Him knowing that—it brings the past closer."

Mac shrugged. "Ben knows about it."

"Ben knows you were an _agent_ , too," Vic said. "Ben knows everything, the Director gave us special permission. You can't tell Mike about the Agency."

"I know," Mac said. "I didn't. That's _why_ I brought up the triads. He'd seen me do stuff that a normal person wouldn't do, and I needed to give him some kind of an explanation. Don't worry, I told him that I was totally out. I said I'd turned state's-evidence against my old gang."

Vic nodded slowly. "I guess that would do it." He sighed, and leaned a little more heavily against Mac. "Speaking of telling Mike things—I was surprised that you brought up your depression."

"Do you think I shouldn't have?" Mac asked, abruptly worried that he'd fucked up again. Figuring out how to pretend to be a normal person was so damn _hard_.

"No, that's not it," Vic said. "I meant—I've never even heard you use the word before. I think it's really good, that you're managing to be more open. And to ask for the help that you need."

"Did Geneviève talk to you?" Mac asked. Because Vic's phrasing sounded pretty familiar.

Vic nodded. "Saturday morning, while you were sleeping in."

"Okay." Mac decided that didn't bother him.

"Maybe you can try being more open with Patricia this afternoon," Vic suggested.

Mac groaned. "Oh, fuck, that's today?"

"Four p.m.," Vic said. "I'll drive you there, and Li Ann will meet you at the door. I'll take Taylor to the library to wait, so we'll just be fifteen minutes away when you call for a pickup."

"Okay," Mac said. If it had to happen, having Li Ann by his side and Vic nearby on call was the best he could hope for. "Thanks."

Vic squeezed Mac's knee. "It's going to get easier," he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself as much as Mac.

"Sure," Mac said, uncertain if Vic had specifically meant talking to Patricia, being open in general, or living like normal people. Maybe all three. Mac wasn't actually convinced it was true—for any of those cases—but he figured that Vic could use some reassurance right about now. "It's got to. Practice makes perfect, right?"


	14. Chapter 14

Late Monday morning, Li Ann got a summons to the briefing room.

"What is it?" she asked cautiously, settling into the chair in front of the Director's desk. She hadn't seen the Director since Friday's rather heated discussion.

"You've been in your new role for a while, now," the Director said. "How's your job satisfaction?"

"Oh." Li Ann frowned, caught off guard by the question. "Fine, I guess?"

"Do you think you might be ready to shake things up a bit? Take on some new responsibilities?"

"Sure," Li Ann said. "Or, wait—what are you talking about, exactly?"

"Typically somebody in your position wouldn't have any contact with active agents," the Director said. "But as you know, I have bigger plans for you. The recruitment office was a convenient place for you to make your transition out of the field, but I'm wondering if you would be open to expanding your role, to include interfacing with an active team."

"'Interfacing' meaning what?"

"Mr. Dobrinsky's role, essentially. You wouldn't be replacing him—at least not at first—but I do have him taking on increased responsibilities elsewhere, so there's some slack to be picked up." The Director sat back in her chair and steepled her hands. "You don't have to say yes. This is a moderately more dangerous role than the one you're doing now. You still wouldn't be going into the field, but as you know, the agents themselves can be ... tricky. There's more than one reason we keep them away from most of the support staff."

"I'm not worried about that," Li Ann said. "Are you talking about Jackie and Paul? You've already had me training with them in the gym three times a week. Is that still going to be happening, by the way?"

The Director waved a hand. "Let's pause that until Paul's had a couple more sessions with Patricia. But you wouldn't be uncomfortable being in a room with him?"

"No," Li Ann said. "Not if it's a room in the Agency."

"And Nasty?" the Director asked. "Jackie and Paul already know you, but I've kept Nasty away from you. Are you willing to be revealed to her in your capacity as an Agency employee?"

Li Ann shrugged. "I guess so." Really, Nastassja seemed the least dangerous of the three of them.

"So overall—your answer is yes? I can bring you in on managing my lead action team?"

Li Ann hesitated for a moment, considering it. She'd only been working in recruitment for two months—she wasn't _bored_.

But actually, the possibility the Director was dangling in front of her now was quite appealing. Li Ann did like the idea of an expanded and more varied role.

"Yes," she said, firmly.

The Director looked pleased. " _Wonderful_. So, here's your first problem to solve: Paul and Nasty have been trying all morning to question a young woman in connection with an active case, and the girl's been refusing to talk to anyone except for you."

"A girl?" Li Ann repeated, confused. She didn't know any girls.

"They're in interrogation room one," the Director said.

* * *

There was a mirrored-glass window. Li Ann took a moment to take in the scene before she entered.

Paul was pacing the room. Nasty and the girl were seated. The girl was wearing a puffy pink coat. Her arms were crossed and her hair was falling across her face, so her features were partly obscured, but Li Ann didn't think that she recognized her. How could she? She didn't know any teenaged girls at all.

Li Ann opened the door.

Everyone looked at her. Paul rolled his eyes and scowled. The girl's eyes were red-rimmed. Nasty did a double-take.

"Shteew-lady!" Nasty said, with a wide but rather puzzled-looking grin. "What are you doing here? Uh, this girl here isn't actually a prisoner. But I _swear_ we're treating her humanely. Or at least we're trying to. She's refusing to cooperate."

"Who is she?" Li Ann asked, coming the rest of the way in and closing the door.

But Nasty frowned. "Wait a sec. How are you even in here, Shteew-lady? This is a _top secret_ facility."

"This is Li Ann," Paul said, sounding irritated about it. "The one Li Jing's been asking for. She works here."

The girl had perked up at the sound of Li Ann's name. "You're Li Ann?" she asked, in Cantonese. "Mac's sister?"

"Whaaa—aat?" Nasty said, simultaneously. "Shteew-lady, you're an _agent_?"

Li Ann ignored Nasty for the moment, and answered the girl—Li Jing. "Yes," she said. "How do you know Mac?"

"He told me not to trust anybody here except for you," Li Jing said, sniffling and brushing her hair away from her face. "The woman with the tattoos seems nice, but I can't talk to her. And I don't like the tall one."

Li Ann glanced at Paul. "I don't like him either," she said.

Paul sneered at her.

"Hey hey, what's happening?" Nasty said.

"Mac told her she should only talk to me," Li Ann said.

"Well, we knew _that_ ," Nasty said. "It's all she's said, all morning. So, wait. The _cops_ who visited me in prison were really agents, _you_ were really an agent—I'm starting to feel a little paranoid, here. Has the Agency been keeping tabs on me for _years_?"

Li Ann shook her head. "We were investigating your husband's death, two years ago. We didn't have any contact with you between that time and the day I came and visited you in November."

"And that was what, a job interview?"

Li Ann nodded. "I'm sorry I deceived you."

"Nah, it's okay," Nasty said. "This shit is _way_ more interesting than being in prison."

Li Ann was relieved to hear that. She realized she'd been carrying some guilt about Nasty's recruitment all this time. But not everybody hated working for the Agency as much as Mac did—that was important to remember. "So what are you trying to find out from Li Jing?" she asked. "And what does Mac have to do with it?"

"Oh, he helped me pull her out of the basement of the gym," Nasty said. "And by the way, somebody coulda _told_ me there'd be another agent there. I thought I was flying solo."

"The gym—that gym he's been going to?" Okay, the pieces were starting to fall into place. "Mac's not an agent anymore, actually. What was Li Jing doing in the basement?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Nasty said. "She got flown in from Hong Kong on Saturday. Mac thinks it was for prostitution, but I guess she hasn't said so in so many words."

"Oh," Li Ann said, with a sharp look back towards the young girl who'd been watching this whole exchange with a wary expression.

She looked like she was barely into her teens. Her oversized parka made her look even more like a child.

Li Ann had a brief sensation of blood rushing in her ears—of nausea, tamped down quickly.

She thought she could guess now why Mac had told Li Jing to talk to _her_.

She took a seat, so that she was level with Li Jing. "Hi," she said to her directly. "Sorry about all that—I needed to check in with them and find out what was going on. Are you okay?"

Li Jing sniffled, and nodded.

"They've had you here all morning. Have they given you anything to eat?"

Li Jing shook her head, but then said, "Mac bought me cookies. Before they brought me here."

"What would you like for lunch?"

Li Jing looked blank for a moment, and then said, "Can I have a McDonald's cheeseburger? And fries? And a chocolate milkshake?"

"Sure," Li Ann said. She turned to Paul. "You can go get it for her."

"No," he said in English. "Nasty should go."

"Go where?" Nasty asked.

"McDonald's," Paul said, his voice fairly dripping with scorn.

Nasty lit up. "Oh, _great_ idea! I could eat a fucking horse. It's been a hell of a morning."

"No, Paul goes," Li Ann insisted. "Nasty stays here."

"She can't understand anything that you're saying," Paul pointed out. "I stay."

Li Ann stood up, not liking the feel of him looming over her. "You hurt Mac," she said, speaking slowly and clearly in English. Glaring at him. "I don't want to be left alone with you."

"Afraid I'll kill you, Tsei?" He was circling slowly away from her, but then he made a tiny fake towards her, half-lifting his hands.

She didn't flinch, but glared coldly at him. "No, I'm afraid I'd kill you. And then _I'd_ be the one in trouble with the Director—and I'm enjoying being on her good side."

"Okay, okay," Nasty said, waving her hands and letting out a nervous laugh. "The tension's getting a little too thick, you guys. I think maybe I should stay. Can we just, like, order in?"

"To a top-secret shadowy government agency?" Li Ann said. "This is supposed to be an unmanned municipal reservoir, so—no. But I've got an idea." She went over to the intercom on the wall and punched the code for the library. "Nathan? Are you there?"

"W-who's asking?"

"A giant bug in interrogation room one," she said, which really wasn't fair—she shouldn't take her anger at Paul out on Nathan and his weird delusions. "I want you to do a McDonald's run."

* * *

With the food on its way, Li Ann settled back into the chair opposite Li Jing. "Would you be willing to tell me what's happened since you left Hong Kong?" she asked, making her voice gentle.

Li Jing fidgeted with her hair, and lowered her eyes before she nodded.

Then she started in with a lot of mundane details that almost certainly weren't important. Li Ann didn't try to correct her, or direct her towards more useful questions—right now, she was just trying to get Li Jing comfortable with talking to her.

So she found out what movies Li Jing had watched on the plane, and what she had eaten, and about the baby that wouldn't stop crying and the tiny bathroom with the loud toilet. There were a couple of vague references to a man who'd been with her, which Li Ann suspected _might_ be important, but for now she didn't push.

In the background, Li Ann heard Paul murmuring occasional translations to Nasty, but he wasn't even bothering with most of it.

Then Li Jing landed in Toronto—although she mentioned that she'd _thought_ she was in New York, which she seemed a little indignant about—and got handed off to another man, named Shum.

Li Jing got put in a car—she couldn't remember anything about the car, other than the fact that the seats were grey and a little battered—and driven to the basement, where she was given a cot, a space heater, and a chemical toilet. She'd slept all day, and then Shum had come for her.

The story petered out there.

"None of that was useful," Paul said in English, sounding annoyed.

"What about Shum?" Li Ann asked. "You could look for him."

"Mac killed him this morning," Nasty said.

"What?!" Li Ann said. "You didn't say there'd been a _fight_."

Nasty shrugged. "You didn't ask."

"Is he okay? Mac? Was he hurt?"

Nasty looked a little taken aback at Li Ann's intensity. "He's fine. He pretty much took Shum out single-handed. I mean, I tried to help, but—man, I really need to get going with some more of that fancy secret-agent combat training."

Li Ann felt a little shaky, thinking of Mac as she'd last seen him on Saturday—haggard from his experience in the hospital, his arm secured in a sling, his whole demeanour muted from the effort of making light of the pain he was in. "You shouldn't have got him involved in that," she said. "He's injured. And he's not an agent anymore."

"I didn't know he _was_ an agent," Nasty said. "I thought he was a cop. I just needed some help getting into the basement."

"You're getting off topic," Paul said. "You have to keep questioning her."

Li Ann nodded; he wasn't wrong. "Li Jing," she said in Cantonese, "Where did Shum take you, when he came for you Saturday night?"

"An apartment building," Li Jing said. She bit the end of a hunk of her hair.

"And he brought you inside?"

Li Jing nodded. "There was another man there." She talked around the hair, which was still in her mouth.

Okay. They needed to know if Mac's guess was right, or if this was something else. "Li Jing," Li Ann said, "Did you have to do something with the man?"

Li Jing just stared at Li Ann and chewed her hair. Her eyes were tearing up a bit.

"Whatever happened, it's not your fault," Li Ann said.

Li Jing sniffled, and shook her head. "I knew why I was coming here."

Li Ann heard Paul translating that to Nasty.

"In Hong Kong?" Li Ann said. "What did they tell you, exactly?"

"That I could earn forty American dollars a night," she said. "That's three _hundred_ Honk Kong dollars."

"Did Shum give you any money that night?" Li Ann asked.

Li Jing shook her head. "He said I had to work for a week first. And then I'd get out of the basement, and get a real place. Now that he's dead does that mean that I won't get any money?"

"Yes," Li Ann said. "But I'll make sure that you get something to eat, and a place to stay, while we figure out how to get you back home."

Li Jing shook her head. "I can't go home."

"Do you have parents?" Li Ann asked.

"Only my mom," Li Jing said. "But she does too many drugs, and she hit me. So I ran away."

"And how did you meet the man who brought you on the plane?"

"I went to one of the corners where the hookers work," Li Jing said—her look of defiance undercut by her increasingly frantic chewing on her hair. "They tried to chase me away, but he called me over."

"And he told you that you could make more money working in Canada?"

Li Jing shook her head. "New York."

Paul snorted. Li Ann glared fiercely at him, and then turned back to Li Jing. "Do you know if there were any other girls working for Shum?"

"No," Li Jing said. "I don't think so. Shum told the man from the plane, 'If she works out, we'll pay half again for the next one.' I don't think he knew I could hear him."

"Thank you, Li Jing," Li Ann said. "That was very helpful."

Just then, there was a knocking at the mirrored glass. And then Nathan's face appeared, ghostly, pressed up against the outside. He said something indistinguishable, and held a McDonald's takeout bag flat against the glass.

"Hey hey!" Nasty said happily. "Lunchtime!"

* * *

After they'd eaten, Li Ann asked Li Jing some more questions. With food in her, she seemed a little more at ease; she didn't chew on her hair as much while she talked.

She knew that she'd travelled into the country on a false Hong Kong passport. She couldn't remember the name that had been on it, but the picture had been a photo of her taken a few hours before she travelled. She'd never had it in her hands; the man travelling with her had carried it. She'd been instructed to call him 'father', and had never heard him use a name.

Saturday night and Sunday night she'd been brought to different apartments, and seen different men. Sunday night there had been two different men in the same apartment, a few hours apart. Two of the men had been white and one had been Asian, but none of them had spoken Cantonese. Shum had stayed in the apartment each time, but outside of the bedroom.

At no point did Li Jing say explicitly what she had done with any of the men, and Li Ann didn't press. At this point she thought it was clear enough.

But at the point when it became apparent that they'd gotten every possible useful fact out of her, Li Ann said in English, "Okay, now I'm going to bring her down to Medical."

Paul frowned. "The Director didn't tell us to do that."

"Feel free to call her," Li Ann said. "She'll clear it. But I'm taking Li Jing to Medical now."


	15. Chapter 15

Li Ann was waiting just inside the Agency's front doors from five minutes to four onward, so when Mac pressed the buzzer outside she was ready to let him in right away.

"Nice poncho," she said, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged, stepped inside, and pocketed his sunglasses. "Sleeves are tricky right now."

She reached out for a hug, but he stepped back instead of towards her. "Better keep your distance," he said. "I think I've caught Taylor's cold."

"Uh oh." Li Ann looked at him with concern. He _looked_ all right—at least, not unusually pale or flushed. "Have you told Vic?"

Mac shook his head. "Didn't want to worry him," he said. And then, in response to her stern look, "I _will_ , when I get home. And he can do his Vic-thing, and wrap me up in blankets and fuss over me for three days. I just figured I'd better get this over with first."

"Okay," Li Ann said. Mac had a point, really—if he'd let on to Vic that he was coming down ill, Vic very well might have tried to reschedule today's appointment. And in the balance of things, Mac seeing Patricia quickly was probably important enough that it shouldn't be delayed. "Anyway, you wouldn't have enjoyed kissing me. I have french fry breath. Li Jing wanted McDonald's for lunch." Li Ann shuddered a little, for dramatic purposes, and mock-punched Mac's good shoulder.

"How is she?" Mac asked, as they started walking down the corridor.

"She's sleeping on a cot in Medical. She's still jet-lagged, on top of everything else," Li Ann said.

"What are you going to do with her?" Mac asked.

Li Ann had been worrying about that for the past few hours. "I think I'm going to have to take her home tonight," she said. She hadn't been able to think of any good alternatives. "After that ... I don't know."

"She told me she didn't want to go back to Hong Kong," Mac said. "She seemed really worried about it."

Li Ann nodded. "She doesn't have parents to go back to. She ran away from her mother, for good reasons. Maybe there's some extended family...? I'll look into it."

"Okay, good," Mac said.

"Mac ... how exactly did you get caught up in this?"

Mac gave a sort of wincing shrug. "It just kind of happened."

"Does Vic know?"

Mac nodded.

"How did he take it?"

"He was upset."

"I'm not surprised."

Mac made a face that combined acknowledgement and mild disagreement. "I think he was more upset than he _should_ have been."

"Well, I can see why he'd worry," Li Ann said. "Combat is a lot more dangerous when you're already hurt." Doubly so with the lung damage _and_ the immobilized arm, though she didn't bother to press the point.

"It was more than that," Mac said. "He said something—Li Ann, he's still messed up about the Chinese commando."

Li Ann's steps faltered for a moment. Mac pulled ahead of her, and then slowed down while she hurried to catch up. "Well, we knew that," she said. "It's why he got retired."

"Yeah, but it hasn't come up since we left the Agency," Mac said. "When he brought it up this morning, it made me realize—Li Ann, I don't think he'd be able to defend himself. If anything happened."

"Nothing's _going_ to happen," Li Ann said. "That's the whole point of leaving the Agency, right?"

"But if it does—Li Ann, we have to look out for him, okay?"

They'd stopped outside the door to Patricia's therapy room. Li Ann met Mac's troubled gaze, and nodded. "Of course," she said. "It's not even a question."

* * *

She thought some more about it, while she settled onto the couch in the therapy room to wait for Patricia to appear. Mac was already anxiously pacing the room.

The problem was, Mac had some justification for worrying about Vic. Mac's own recent experiences, Friday and this morning, pointed to the fact that a former agent couldn't necessarily expect to lead a peaceful life. You could argue that Mac in particular was a trouble magnet—which was true—but both Paul and Nasty had been connections from his past, and Mac wasn't the only one with a past. Between his days as a cop and his days as an agent, Vic had a lot of still-living enemies.

"Whelan Crone," Li Ann said suddenly, in dismay.

Mac stopped moving and gave her a puzzled look.

"A former agent. Broken. Terrified of violence. The Director pulled him into an investigation touching on events from his time at the Agency—do you remember the Nicholas Love case?"

"I remember Dobrinsky and Vic being locked in my apartment with me for three solid days back when Vic still kind of hated me," Mac said. "We can laugh about it now. Uh, so what about Crone?"

"He got shot trying to pass us information at Salsa Night," Li Ann said. "He died."

Mac swore in Cantonese and braced himself against the wall. "Li Ann," he said without looking back at her, "You have influence at the Agency."

She nodded, but then realized he couldn't see her. "Some," she said.

"Use it to protect Vic," Mac said. "If anything comes up that could pull him in—don't let it."

"I'll do everything I can," she promised. "If it ever comes up."

Their conversation was interrupted at that point by Patricia's arrival through the inner door. She was wearing a shiny leather bustier and a leather miniskirt over black fishnet stockings and silver six-inch heels.

" _Why_ ," Mac said, staring at her, "would you dress like _that_ for my therapy session?"

"Do you think this is my only appointment today?" Patricia rolled her eyes, and then plucked a white lab coat from a hook on the wall and buttoned it shut over the outfit. "What are you doing here?" she asked, looking at Li Ann. "Oh, wait, I forgot—the chaperone."

The furniture in the room consisted of a desk with a computer and office chair, the couch Li Ann was currently sitting on, and an armchair cornerwise to the couch. There was a wooden end-table between the armchair and couch, with a tissue box set on it.

Patricia perched in the armchair, crossing her legs. Her calves looked great, Li Ann couldn't help but notice. "So did you start the new meds?" she asked, clearly addressing Mac but not craning her neck around to look at him as he paced behind her chair.

"Saturday morning," Mac said.

"You might not notice any improvements for a week or two," Patricia said, "but some side-effects are possible right away. Have you had any dizziness, nausea, loss of appetite, or increased appetite?"

"No," Mac said. "Not this time."

"Dry mouth? Excessive sleepiness? Confusion?"

"No, no and no," Mac said.

"Erectile dysfunction?"

"What?!" Mac looked appalled. "That's a very personal question, Dr. Tarantula-keeper."

Patricia cast an amused, sideways look at Li Ann, as though they were allies. Li Ann kept her expression neutral. "We can talk in privacy if you'd prefer," Patricia said.

"No," Mac said quickly. "Li Ann stays. And all my bits are still working fine, thanks."

"Okay, good to know," Patricia said. "Now sit down."

"No, I'm good over here," Mac said, moving further away from Patricia.

"That was an order, not a request." Patricia snapped her fingers twice and pointed at the couch.

"No," Mac said, retreating straight into the far corner of the room.

"Still oppositional, I see," Patricia mused.

"He can stay over there if he wants to," Li Ann said levelly, sending Patricia a look intended to remind her that _Li Ann_ was in charge here, by the Director's orders.

"He needs to sit down and relax so that I can take his blood pressure," Patricia said. "Low blood pressure is a potentially dangerous possible side effect—I have to check for it."

"You could have said that," Li Ann pointed out. "Instead of giving him orders without context."

Patricia smiled. Her lips were painted a rich burgundy. "But then I wouldn't have found out how he reacts to orders without context."

Li Ann leaned forward. "Patricia," she said warningly, "he's not an agent. He's not here for you to play games with."

"But Mac and I have always had so much _fun_ with our games," Patricia said. "Haven't we, Mac?"

"No," Mac said from the corner. "Definitely not."

"I hear you've stopped drinking," Patricia said, pitching her voice to carry even as she leaned back in her chair in a semblance of languid relaxation.

Mac looked appalled. "How would you even _know_ that?" he said. "Shit, it's—it's Geneviève talking to the Director, isn't it? And the Director talks to you."

Patricia shook her head, and smiled again. "I didn't know," she said. "I was just baiting you. But _now_ I know, and that's great news, Ramsey. Well done. I seriously doubted you had it in you—but then I never foresaw the relationship with Mansfield."

"Patricia," Li Ann said again, pinning her with a quelling look.

Patricia shrugged, and said quietly, "If we're going to get anywhere, you have to let me work."

"Have you considered just _asking_ him what you want to know?" Li Ann suggested acerbically. "'Mac, have you got the drinking under control?' How hard is that?"

"Your brother is a silver-tongued liar who's built up more defensive walls than Emperor Qin Shi Huang," Patricia said. "He's never told me a single true thing about himself voluntarily."

"I can't imagine why," Li Ann murmured.

"What do you _want_ from me, Patricia?" Mac asked from his corner. "I'm taking your fucking pills."

"I want to know that you're stable enough to leave out in the world," Patricia said. "That you're not going to make a habit of having dramatic public breakdowns that risk drawing attention to the Agency."

Well, that had chilling implications. "Mac," Li Ann said quietly, "Come and sit."

He must have caught her tone, because he did.

Li Ann had sat at the end of the couch closer to Patricia's chair. Mac sat as far as he could to the opposite end, and looked over warily.

"Wonderful," Patricia said. "Now, on a scale of one to ten—how bad have your nightmares been, recently?"

Mac frowned, hesitated, and then said, "Eight."

"Great," Patricia said. "Now what does that mean?"

Mac blinked. "Uh, you told me to pick a number. So I did."

"Explain the scale to me."

"Okay. Um ... six is last June. Before Taylor was kidnapped. We were in a groove, everything was pretty good then. And ten is ... after Michael came back. Before I had Vic."

"So midway between your best and your worst," Patricia said. "All right. Now, tell me why right now would be harder than last June."

"I don't know," Mac said. "I'm sorry. It's fucked up. Now should be better."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I'm out of the Agency."

"Which is what you always said you wanted."

"It _is_ what I wanted," Mac insisted, with a quick glare in Patricia's direction. "This place makes my skin crawl."

Li Ann reached across to lay a hand on Mac's knee, which was bouncing. He stilled his knee, and gave her a quick grateful look.

"Okay," Patricia said. "So how do the nightmares make you feel?"

Mac frowned. "Um, awful? They're nightmares."

"Do you find that there are physical symptoms associated with them?"

"Yeah, sure. Heart pounding, that kind of thing."

"I'd like you to try taking notes," Patricia said. "For the next two weeks. Keep a notepad by your bed. If you wake up from a nightmare, write down the physical sensations and rate their intensity on a scale from one to ten. If the medication's working, the ratings should get lower over time. If that's not happening, then we might need to adjust the dosages again, or try a different combination of drugs."

"Patricia, do you have a notepad we could borrow right now?" Li Ann asked. "And a pen?" If there were going to be instructions, somebody should probably be taking notes, and she hadn't thought to bring anything to write with.

"You can find something in the desk," Patricia said, waving her hand at it vaguely. 

Li Ann stood up and went to the cherry-wood desk, and then hesitated over the drawers.

"Don't worry, the private files are all in the back room," Patricia said, sounding bemused.

So Li Ann went through the desk and found a blank spiral-bound pad and a blue pen. The blood pressure gauge was in the same drawer. Li Ann picked it up and turned around. "Hey, weren't you planning to—"

Patricia had moved over onto the couch. She'd set herself right next to Mac, who meanwhile was grinning very uncomfortably and pressing himself hard against the arm of the couch. Patricia's crossed leg was not quite touching Mac's knee, but was patently boxing him in.

"At the hospital," Patricia said to Mac, in an intimately casual tone, "you said that you'd been having obsessive thoughts about Michael Tang recently."

Mac looked like he wanted to retreat two inches into his own skin. "Did I say that?" he asked in a bit of a squeak.

"Patricia!" Li Ann snapped. "Stop that. Get away from him, now."

Patricia narrowed her eyes at Li Ann. "Your brother's a big boy. He can take care of himself."

"Sure, I'm fine," Mac said, in a tone of voice that absolutely wasn't.

Li Ann was in charge here. The Director had given her a note, and a promise. And Li Ann had promised Mac that she'd make sure he was safe from the Agency's sinister quirks.

The mind games had to stop. Now.

"Patricia," Li Ann said calmly and firmly, "I would like to talk to you in the back room."

Patricia tilted her head. "That's not possible."

"It definitely is," Li Ann said. "And it's happening, right now. Or else I'm calling the Director and letting her know that Mac is leaving immediately and never coming back."

With a sort of grumbling huff, Patricia got to her feet. "If her majesty takes issue with this later, it's on you," she said. She opened the door to the back room just a crack, and waved Li Ann to go ahead of her.

"We'll be right back," Li Ann promised Mac.

He gave her a nervous grin, and a finger-wiggling wave.

* * *

Dobrinsky was in the back room.

Patricia slipped in quickly after Li Ann, and shut the door. An instinctive calculation of the sight lines let Li Ann know that Mac wouldn't have seen Dobrinsky—nobody on the couch would.

Dobrinsky was dressed in one of his regular grey suits, and he was sitting canted back on a desk chair, with his legs extended, ankles crossed, feet up on a desk. He was reading a book and listening to a Sony Discman—Li Ann could faintly hear the tinny music, it sounded like one of his marching band tracks—but he looked up when they entered and pushed the headphones down around his neck. "Tsei," he said. "What are you doing back here?"

"What are _you_ doing back here?" she threw back at him. And then, taking a few steps further into the room and glancing back towards the desk Dobrinsky's feet were propped on, she saw the monitor. A clear view of the whole therapy room—by the angle, the camera had to be hidden in the smoke detector. Mac, on the couch, appeared slightly foreshortened.

"Obligatory protocol," Patricia said. "He's always back here when I meet with an agent."

Li Ann's immediate follow-up question—does the spying include _sound_ —was answered before she could ask it, because Mac sneezed quietly, and the sound was clear through the computer's speakers.

"Gesundheit," Dobrinsky said absently towards the computer.

Li Ann felt a cold rage building. She'd always known that the Agency wasn't big on privacy—but the _therapy_ room?

If she'd ever confided in Patricia...

Well, she hadn't. And she was glad.

"It isn't enough that you report on us to the Director," she said to Patricia, incredulous. "Dobrinsky listens to _every word_ we _say_ to you?"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Patricia said. "You're a grownup now, you get to see behind the curtain, fine. Agents are dangerous and I push their buttons to see what happens. Sometimes what happens is they attack me."

Li Ann glared at her. "Mac would never do that, and you know it."

Dobrinsky raised both an eyebrow and his thick paperback book. "Do I look like I was even remotely worried I was gonna have to jump in there and save her scrawny white ass? It's an _obligatory_ protocol, Tsei. Straight from head office. Believe me, I am not interested in learning about your boring childhood traumas. I've got my book, I've got my tunes, I've got my butt in the chair."

"I know I'm safe with Mac," Patricia confirmed dryly. "He's a pussycat." She swatted Dobrinsky's feet off her desk. "You should've been paying _some_ attention, though. I think I nearly provoked _Tsei_ into attacking me."

"You _did_ ," Dobrinsky pointed out. "Or else tell me how you ended up back here?"

Which reminded Li Ann why she'd brought Patricia back here in the first place. Only she hadn't expected to have to castigate her in front of an _audience_.

Oh well. Dobrinsky patently didn't care, and he was effectively part of the Agency furniture anyway.

"You were physically intimidating Mac," Li Ann said, turning on Patricia. "You're going to cut that out. Completely. Or I'm pulling the cord on this whole thing."

Patricia rolled her eyes. "Oh my fucking god, Tsei. He's six foot three. He killed a man this morning. I know you have a protective-sibling thing going on with him—but he's not some helpless duckling.

"He _can't_ protect himself from you, because you know he can't lay a hand on you, and you wield very real power over him," Li Ann said—frustrated that she had to point out the blatantly obvious. "You could have him drugged, you could have him restrained, you could have him locked up. You threatened it on Friday."

"I haven't threatened him _today_ ," Patricia said.

"Except when you implied that if he doesn't convince you he's got the breakdowns under control, you'll confine him in the Agency," Li Ann pointed out.

"They don't have to be under control," Patricia clarified. "They've just got to be less public."

"And you were invading his personal space, with sexually suggestive body language," Li Ann continued. "And then bringing up Michael Tang—you _know_ what Michael did to him."

"Actually, I don't," Patricia said, sounding annoyed. "Mac's never talked to me about him. And her majesty expects me to report on everything I find out, but she doesn't return the favour—I mean, shit, it's not like the information would be useful for me doing my _job_ , or anything."

"Patricia's got a point," Dobrinsky said. "You wanna give her the bullet points, Tsei? Or I could."

Li Ann shook her head slowly. "No. Patricia—no offence, but I don't think you're a very good fit for Mac, therapy-wise. I think it would be best if you just supervise the medications. Vic and I will help Mac work through the rest of it."

"How's that working out for you so far?" Patricia asked. She sounded honestly curious, not scornful.

"Better than you might think," Li Ann said. "He's made a lot of progress."

"Well, that's great," Patricia said. "I wish him all the best. I really could use some intel on Michael, though. I've still got to work with Paul." When she said Paul's name, she touched her neck.

Li Ann hadn't noticed before now, because of the neck tattoos. But Patricia had a ring of fresh bruises around her neck.

"Oh my god," Li Ann said quietly. "Paul hurt you. When?"

"Saturday," Dobrinsky said. "And before you ask—I _don't_ read or listen to music when she's in there with him. The bastard moved fast."

"Thanks very much for the tasing, by the way," Patricia said with a grimace. "You really couldn't have gotten him off me without giving _me_ a fucking perm?"

Dobrinsky shrugged. "Can't beat the laws of physics."

"Wait," Li Ann said, thinking back to her morning. "Paul tried to strangle his therapist on Saturday, and this morning the Director put him in charge of questioning Li Jing? What is _wrong_ with this place?"

"Dude doesn't have a problem with little girls," Dobrinsky said with a shrug.

"Or women, usually," Patricia added, with another absent brush at her neck. "I poked a sore place, apparently. I was trying to find out why he'd stabbed Mac. You all were talking about Michael Tang, back at the hospital, like he had something to do with it, so I tried working that angle. Fruitfully, as you can see. But unfortunately the session got cut off at that point since Paul and I had to go separately to Medical. So, yeah, Tsei, if you could see your way to telling me what you know about Michael Tang, I'd really appreciate it."

Li Ann felt caught flat-footed. She couldn't deny the logic of Patricia's request—but how would she even _begin_?

She looked over to Dobrinsky, almost in appeal. He shrugged, clearly ceding the floor to her.

She glanced over at the monitor.

Left to his own devices, Mac had taken possession of the notepad that Li Ann had abandoned on the desk. He'd ripped several pages out, and was in the process of surrounding himself with a little paper menagerie. Li Ann spotted a frog, a crane, and a rabbit.

"I can't tell you what Michael was like for Paul," Li Ann said. "I don't know. I can tell you what he was like for me, and for Mac."

Patricia leaned back against the desk that supported the monitor, and crossed her arms. "Well?"

"When we were growing up together, Michael seemed ... tight. Very carefully controlled," Li Ann said. "Mac was the wild one. Michael never drank, never yelled. And he never hurt me, or even threatened to, but somehow I still understood that I should be ... careful, around him. In retrospect, there was a darkness to him that I always felt, even if I couldn't see it."

"But eventually you did see it?" Patricia suggested.

"Nearly four years ago," Li Ann said. Taylor would be three in March. "He decided he wanted to possess me. He got permission from our father—the Tang godfather, I mean, but he was Michael's biological father, and he raised Mac and me—"

"Yes, yes, I've memorized your background files," Patricia interjected impatiently.

"He got permission from the godfather to marry me and move to Singapore," Li Ann said. "He didn't consult me."

"Well, that's a dick move for sure," Patricia said. "But it doesn't explain the power he's got over Mac and Paul more than a year after his death.

"I figured out who Michael really was," Li Ann said, "when I watched him murder a man for the fun of it."

"Oh, now we're getting somewhere," Patricia said. "He was a sadist?"

"Do you mean sexually?" Li Ann asked.

Patricia shrugged. "Not necessarily."

Li Ann thought about it for a moment. She'd never considered that particular term before, with reference to Michael. "I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know if he _liked_ hurting Mac, or if he just liked the effect that it had."

"So he never hurt you," Patricia said. "But he did hurt Mac."

Li Ann nodded. "I didn't know, when we were kids," she said. "I only found out last year."

"Mac seems like he can take care of himself," Patricia said. "I sure as hell wouldn't try to attack him physically."

"Mac was barely fourteen when he became Michael's lover," Li Ann said. "Michael was nineteen. He pulled Mac off the street and gave him a place in the Tang family. Mac owed Michael everything, and he was always completely in his power. And that was the way Michael liked it."

"So was the abuse physical, or emotional?" Patricia asked.

Li Ann breathed deeply. She wasn't at all sure that Mac would forgive her if he found out she'd talked directly to Patricia about these things.

But on some level, Patricia was her colleague now. And she had a ring of bruises around her neck.

And Dobrinsky's presence was a reminder that they'd never had as many secrets as they'd thought they had.

And for that matter, Dobrinsky presumably already knew the gist of everything Li Ann was about to tell Patricia, from the Director. He'd tell her if Li Ann didn't, now that Patricia was asking.

It was probably better that it came from Li Ann.

"Both," she said. "But Mac still resists calling it that. He'll make excuses for it—he'll say that Michael hurt him to protect him."

Patricia lifted an eyebrow. "To protect him from _what_?"

"Himself. He had PTSD before he ever met Michael. He hid it from me when we were growing up, but Michael knew. Michael controlled his drinking, and stopped him from going too far. And ... I know of at least one time that Michael seriously injured Mac to derail a credible suicide threat." The broken ribs, that had been, when Mac was fifteen. Mac had developed pneumonia afterwards. Li Ann had nursed him through his convalescence, reading him poetry and playing Go and making jokes to keep his spirits up, thinking all the while that it had been a training accident. Michael had been unusually gentle with Mac, in that period.

"So would you say the abuse was ambiguous? That Michael might legitimately have been looking out for Mac's best interests?"

Li Ann shook her head. "You were asking about the nightmares, earlier," she said. "A lot of them are about Michael raping him."

Dobrinsky shifted slightly in his chair, and frowned.

Patricia tilted her head. "Are these dreams metaphors, or...?"

"No, this was a regular part of their sexual relationship," Li Ann said. She could hear her own voice going hard and distant—this was not something she had made her peace with. She'd been in the next room over, and she'd never suspected a thing. "Mac doesn't use the word 'rape'. He'll just say that Michael made him have sex when he didn't want to, and it hurt." Li Ann touched her neck. "He wakes up from the nightmares choking sometimes. Because sometimes Michael would hold him down like that, press his windpipe until he nearly blacked out—or until he _did_ , if it went a little too far. Do you think that might be...?"

Patricia made her hands into a light circle around her own neck, lined up with the bruises. "Yes, possibly," she said. "That might be related. Thank you for telling me. I promise not to use it against him."

"If you do," Li Ann said very calmly—and watched Dobrinsky tense, because he obviously thought a death threat was about to follow—"I will have you fired."

"Okay," Patricia said. "Fair enough."

Back in the outer room, Mac sneezed again.

Li Ann glanced at the monitor. Mac was massaging his temples, like he had a headache. He looked tired. The couch was littered with origami animals and paper scraps. "It's time for us to go," she said.

* * *

Patricia did finally check Mac's blood pressure, and declared it acceptable. She also confirmed Mac's next appointment two weeks hence.

"To check how the medication's working out," Li Ann emphasized, fixing Patricia with a stern look.

Patricia made a conceding gesture, and waved them away.

"I have to tell you a couple of things," Li Ann said quietly as soon as they were out in the hall.

"Shoot," Mac said, flipping his sunglasses on.

"Dobrinsky was in the back room. He supervises Patricia's sessions."

Mac slapped the wall they were walking past and clenched his teeth. "God _damn_ it, that man is everywhere."

"If it's any comfort, I don't think he was paying much attention. He was reading a history of the Boer War and listening to marching band music."

Mac frowned. "You're saying he ignores me _while_ he's spying on me? I don't get it."

Li Ann shook her head. "It's a safety measure. He wasn't actually worried that you'd hurt Patricia. But he had to intervene on Saturday when Paul tried to strangle her."

Mac stopped in his tracks for a moment. Looked at her. "What?"

Li Ann kept walking, drawing Mac along in her wake. "She was asking him about Michael. Trying to figure out why Paul stabbed you. She has bruises all around her neck."

"Shit," Mac said. "I didn't notice."

Li Ann nodded. "The tattoos hid them pretty well." She took a breath. "So I told her about how Michael used to—" _strangle you while he raped you_ , but she didn't want to give Mac more than he could handle right now— "squeeze your neck during sex."

"Oh," Mac said. With his free hand, he tugged at his sling. He didn't stop walking, or look at her. "We don't know that he was like that with Paul."

"We don't know that he wasn't."

"Okay." Mac stuck his good hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone. He started flipping it open and closed, one-handed, without really looking at it. "Tell her whatever you think she needs to know. I don't _like_ her. But I don't want her to get hurt."

"Okay." Li Ann reached out, squeezed his shoulder. "I love you, Mac."

* * *

The Director popped out of a doorway in the first floor hallway, blocking their path to the exit. "Oh good, I caught you," she said. "Mac, I just wanted to let you know that three thousand dollars has been transferred into your bank account, for your activities this morning."

They both stopped and stared at her. "What?" Mac said. "You're _paying_ me for that?"

She smiled. "You did good work."

Mac shook his head, his brow furrowing over his sunglasses. "Three _thousand_ dollars? When I _worked_ for you, you didn't pay me that much in a month."

The Director made a lazy gesture. "Independent contractors make more per hour, but they don't get all the fringe benefits. It's the nature of the beast."

"I'm not a contractor." Mac sounded confused, more than anything. "There was no contract."

"Well, you can _return_ the money if you really want to..."

"No," Mac said quickly. "No, I'll keep it."

"Fine." The Director nodded. "Also, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stay away from your gym for the foreseeable future."

"Vic's way ahead of you there," Mac said. "He wants me to join a tai chi gym. With old people."

A brief look of amusement flickered over the Director's features. "Where you go instead is no concern of mine," she said. "But Shum's death means there's an opening in the organization, and I'm going to try to insert Paul. It would really be best if you stayed far away from that."

"Do you think Paul is fit for an undercover mission right now?" Li Ann asked, a little incredulously. "In the past three days he's tried to murder two people on his _own side_."

"Oh, of course, I see your point," the Director said, making a face. "I should certainly send in a more _stable_ agent with Cantonese-language fluency and experience in Chinese gangs. Since I obviously have a lot of those to choose from."

Mac made a twitchy little movement.

The Director noticed, and chuckled. "Don't panic, Mr. Ramsey," she said. "I wasn't making a backhanded reference to you. This morning's events notwithstanding, you're not an agent anymore and I wouldn't ask you to perform as one. Besides, _are_ you more stable than Paul? I think it's a toss-up."

Li Ann cleared her throat. "Well, I could—" she started.

The Director and Mac both looked at her—with bemusement and appalled shock, respectively.

"No fucking way—" Mac interrupted immediately.

The Director just shook her head and _tsk-_ ed. "Li Ann, you've been promoted. Even if you still had the physical robustness—which I greatly regret to remind you that you _don't_ , you only look healthy when you're comparing yourself to Mac—this sort of thing is beneath you. I'm sending Paul in, and that's final. He can handle it, or he can't. Either he succeeds and takes down the human trafficking operation, or he fails and gets himself killed. Either way there's an upside from your point of view, so relax." And with that, she spun on her stiletto heels and tapped briskly away down the corridor.

"Gosh I missed this place," Mac said. "Not. Get me the _hell_ out of here."


	16. Chapter 16

Li Ann picked Li Jing up from Medical before she left the Agency that evening.

Li Jing was groggy, and followed Li Ann to her car without asking any questions. They'd been underway for ten minutes before she thought to ask, "Where are we going?"

"My apartment," Li Ann said. "But we're stopping for dinner on the way, and then to the mall to get you some clothes and things. Sorry, I know the time's all backwards for you—you probably feel like it should be breakfast right now."

Li Jing shrugged, and stared out the window.

She was quiet through dinner, as well, and when Li Ann brought her to the mall, she gave a prompt but unenthusiastic 'yes' to every outfit Li Ann suggested.

Li Ann got her three changes of clothes and one set of pyjamas, as well as a toothbrush. Other toiletries, she could borrow from Li Ann.

It was about half past nine when they got to Li Ann's place. Li Ann invited Li Jing to shower and change, while Li Ann got the futon ready to be used as a bed.

Li Jing emerged wearing the new pyjamas, and with a towel wrapped around her hair. She looked even younger than before—all of the pyjamas available in her size had had big-eyed cartoon kittens on them. "I'd like to go to bed now," she said.

"All right," Li Ann agreed. "Let me know if you need anything."

* * *

Li Ann woke up in darkness and suffocating terror.

She was back in the brothel.

There was the woman who hit her, the man with the rotten teeth who guarded the door, the other girls with their lurid smeared lipstick smiles.

The men who paid for her.

She curled up in a ball. She was in her bedroom, her bedroom in _Toronto_ , half a world and more than a decade removed from that place. If a man reached for her like that now, she would kill him, she knew how to do it, she could easily imagine a nose crunching under the heel of her hand driving bone fragments into a brain.

She did, she imagined it, several times. Emphatically.

Her heart was still racing—she felt like she might faint. Curled up in a ball on her bed. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run down to the street and keep running, she wanted to punch and kick the walls. She did none of those things. She only clenched her fists so hard that her fingernails gauged her palms, clenched her teeth until her jaw hurt, clenched her _toes_ until her calves cramped.

And then eventually, her body got tired of that. She relaxed all at once, with a feeling like collapsing. But she was still lying down on the bed.

Unsettled. She hadn't dreamed about the brothel that intensely in years.

She got up to make tea.

The light was on in the living room. Li Ann was disconcerted, as though she'd forgotten that she had a house guest—but obviously she knew that Li Jing was here, she'd had that _dream_ because....

Stop.

Li Jing was sitting at the dining table. She had some paper and a pen—the message pad from beside the phone and the pen Li Ann kept with it. She was doodling.

"Hi," Li Ann said. "Trouble sleeping?"

Li Jing looked up, but she didn't say anything.

"Me too," Li Ann said. "I'm going to make some tea."

She didn't ask Li Jing if she wanted any, but she put on enough for two.

She stayed in the kitchen until the water had boiled and was ready to be poured into the pot. She arranged the pot and cups on a lacquer tray, and brought them out to the table.

Li Jing curled a hand protectively around her drawings, but also winced apologetically. "You don't have a TV," she said. "Do you want your pen back?"

"No, it's fine," Li Ann said. "Sorry about the TV. I just ... didn't feel like getting one, when I moved here. May I see what you've drawn?"

Li Jing hesitated, but then nudged the pad towards Li Ann.

She'd filled nearly half the pages, without detaching them from the pad. Most of the drawings featured what looked like the same boy and girl, in different costumes and poses. They were simple line drawings, but very appealing. "These are really good," Li Ann said, surprised.

Li Jing shrugged, and bit a strand of her hair. "They're not mine," she said.

Li Ann pushed the pad back towards her. "What do you mean? Obviously you just drew them. There's nobody else here."

"They're characters from a comic that I like," Li Jing said.

"Well, they're lovely," Li Ann said. She poured them each a cup of tea.

Li Jing looked at the cup almost suspiciously, but then picked it up and sipped.

"We have to talk," Li Ann said, "about where you're going to go next."

Li Jing put down her cup, and put more hair in her mouth.

"Do you have any other relatives?" Li Ann asked. "Besides your mother?"

Li Jing shook her head. And then she said, "You can't send me back to her. I'll run away again."

"We won't send you back to her," Li Ann assured her.

"They did last year," Li Jing said. "She hit me, and the police came to my school and took me away, and then later they sent me back to her."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Li Ann said. "It won't happen again." She really wasn't sure that she had the power to keep these promises, but in her experience the Agency's reach should never be underestimated.

"Then where _am_ I going to go?" Li Jing asked.

Li Ann sipped her tea, and frowned. "I don't know yet."

"I don't want to go back to a group home," Li Jing said. "The girls there were mean. And they ripped up my comics."

"I can't make any promises about that," Li Ann admitted, figuring that she owed Li Jing honesty more than comforting lies. "You have to go _somewhere_."

Li Jing shook her head and chewed on her hair. "I'll go back on the street," she said. "I know what I'm doing now. I won't get ripped off again."

Li Ann sighed, feeling immensely tired. "No, Li Jing," she said. "That's not a good plan."

Li Jing glared at her. "What do _you_ know about any of it? I _hate_ social workers. You _say_ you want to help me but you never fucking do!"

"I'm not a social worker." Li Ann grimaced. "Sorry."

"Huh?" Li Jing sat up straighter, dropped her hair from her mouth, and pushed back her chair from the table. She suddenly looked a little wary. "Then what are you?"

"You," Li Ann said. "Ten years later."

Li Jing just looked confused.

Li Ann sighed. "Sorry," she said again. "This isn't easy for me, actually. I was even younger than you when ... when I had to do some of the same kinds of things that you've just done."

Li Jing's eyes went wide. "You're a prostitute?"

"Not anymore," Li Ann said. And forced herself to take a sip of tea, keeping her expression calm.

"For real? You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"

"Yes, it's true," Li Ann said. "I worked in a brothel in Hong Kong, when I was younger than you. And it's also true that I got out of that life." She took a slightly shaky breath, and once again forced the muscles of her face into a semblance of serenity. " _Does_ that make you feel better?"

Li Jing's eyes welled up with tears, and she stuffed a whole handful of hair into her mouth.

"Um." Li Ann stared at her, wondering if she should be offering a hug.

Li Jing flipped back to the page she'd been working on when Li Ann came into the room, and resumed drawing. The tears that had built up in her eyes tracked down her cheeks, but no more followed.

"I'll get you more paper," Li Ann said. "Tomorrow."

"Thanks," Li Jing said around her hair, without looking up.

* * *

The next day, Li Ann left the Agency at lunchtime.

She needed to do some shopping, and to bring some food to Li Jing, who was stuck in her apartment for the day.

But first—she pulled into a half-empty parking lot ten minutes' drive from the Agency, put on the parking brake but left the engine running and the heater on, and called Mac.

It went to voicemail.

She tried Geneviève and Huang's home phone.

Vic picked it up on the third ring. "Bouchard-Wong household."

"Hi, it's me," she said. "Is Mac there? I tried his cell phone, but there was no answer."

"Oh, he probably left his phone in his pants from yesterday," Vic said. " _This_ is why I always check his pockets before I do laundry."

"Is he _there_?" Li Ann asked again, patiently.

"Oh, yeah. I'm on the cordless—I'll bring you to him."

Sounds of movement. Taylor's lilting voice in the background. Vic, muffled: _It's for you, it's Li Ann,_.

And finally Mac. "Hi," he said. "What's up?"

"You sound awful," she said, which wasn't what she'd been _planning_ to say—but his voice was hoarse, and he sounded all stuffed up.

"Thanks," he said wryly. "Were you calling to check on me? Vic's in full mother-hen mode. I'm wrapped up in blankets and I've been watching cartoons all morning. Vic's making chicken soup for lunch."

"Are you ... doing okay? With all that?"

"I'm getting better at it," Mac said. "At ... you know. Trusting it. I mean, my _head_ knows it's okay, it's safe, I don't have to hide that I'm sick. My gut hasn't totally caught up."

"It will," Li Ann promised him. "Just try to relax, and let Vic look after you. Anyway, it's really important that you rest. Remember what happened the last time."

"Yeah, I remember."

Not like either of them was likely to forget.

"Anyway, that's not really what I called about," Li Ann said. "Actually I need your advice."

"About what?"

"I had a bad dream last night," she said. "About the brothel."

"Oh, Li Ann," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Her free hand clenched into a fist, but she kept her voice steady. "The re-scripting exercises," she said. "Do they work?"

"Yes and no," he said. "I mean ... they're not magic. But they help. I feel a lot more in control. The nightmares still suck but I don't feel like they're going to drown me."

"I was with you when Reshmi explained the technique," Li Ann said. "I remember her example—if you have a recurring dream about a dog biting you, try imagining giving the dog a treat, so it starts wagging its tail, and you scratch behind its ears, and it becomes your friend."

"Uh huh."

"But I don't see how to make that work when the dreams are about things that really happened. I don't see how it could possibly be helpful to re-script my past into some kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy. My parents _sold_ me."

"Right," Mac said. "I don't re-script my past. I just re-script the dreams."

" _How_?" Li Ann asked, and she hated the fact that her voice broke in the middle of the word. She closed her eyes for a second, and breathed.

"I—sorry, hang on, I—" There was a staticky rustling sound, like the phone had been put face-down on fabric. Li Ann had just enough time to wonder what was happening when she heard a muffled sneeze. "Sorry," Mac said again, back on the phone. He sounded even more stuffed-up than before. "I was trying to say— _shit_ , wait, I'm gonna— _h'tchh! Huh...tchhh!_ "

"Maybe go get a tissue?" Li Ann suggested gently.

"The box is right here," Mac said, a little sheepishly. "Wait a sec, okay?" There was a beep, and then silence on the line—Li Ann guessed that he'd muted the phone.

Li Ann waited. Her car windows had started to steam up. She cleared a spot with her sleeve. Outside, snow was falling lightly.

The phone beeped again. "Okay, hi," Mac said. He sounded a little better. "So, the re-scripting. I do it as a fast-forward."

"What do you mean?"

"Literally, like on the VCR. I start with ... you know, whatever the dream was about. Wherever it put me. And then I picture everything starting to move fast, and all jerky, and with those horizontal lines kind of dancing over everything. Faster and faster, and I imagine the sound too, you know, that whirrring noise the tape makes? And then I get to something _good_ , something in the present, and I hit 'play,' and I watch that scene for a while."

It was so simple, but it made a lot of sense. Li Ann thought she could probably do that. She felt a totally unexpected wash of relief—like she could already feel her control over her life coming back. "What kind of things do you picture, in the present?"

"When I started doing this," Mac said, "the scene I played was always you and Vic holding me."

"Oh," Li Ann said softly.

"But now I only use that one if I'm feeling really overwhelmed," Mac went on. "I've got a bunch of others. Taylor being silly at her ballet class. All of us—all six of us, I mean—around the table at suppertime. Performing our piece with Ben at the Two-Ring Circus."

"You got _shot_ that night," Li Ann pointed out, wrinkling her nose.

"It was just a graze," Mac said, sounding unconcerned. "But wasn't it _fun_ , before that happened? We should do that again sometime."

"I didn't really like being the centre of so much attention," Li Ann said. "And I'm still a secret agent, remember. But if you liked it that much—you _should_ do something like that again. If you talk to Ben about it, I'm sure he'd help you make it happen."

"So what do you think you'd use?" Mac asked.

"Oh." Li Ann hesitated. "Some of the same kinds of things, I guess. Cuddling with you and Vic, watching a movie. Taylor playing with the bubbles in her bath." She drummed absently on the steering wheel with her free hand. "Ah, there's something else that comes to mind, but I'm not sure if I should say it. It might bother you."

"We're trying to be more honest with each other," he reminded her.

"Okay," she said. "I just thought about ... walking into the Agency in the morning. Sitting at my desk, opening up my files, getting to work. Meeting with the Director and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the potential agents we're considering."

He was silent for a moment, and she wondered if this was going to turn into a fight, like when Vic had first suggested that she recruit Nasty. Maybe she really shouldn't have told him.

But then he just said, "Yeah, that makes sense." He didn't sound upset.

"It does?"

"You like your job. You weren't trapped into it—the Director offered you the choice to leave, but you took the promotion. You're _good_ at what you do, and the Director—a very scary human being—respects you. So yeah. It makes a lot of sense that you'd fast-forward to that, to get rid of the feeling of being trapped in the brothel."

Li Ann sat with that for a moment. Nodded, though there was nobody to see. "Thanks," she said quietly. "For understanding. I know the Agency means something very different to you."

"Hey, but can I tell you something I didn't really want to tell Vic?"

"Isn't he there with you?"

"No, he went back upstairs with Taylor."

"Same warning as always, Mac—if you tell me something that worries me, I'm definitely telling Vic."

"It's not like that. It's just—yesterday. Breaking into the basement, fighting Shum, saving Li Jing. I enjoyed it, Li Ann."

"Oh," she said. "Right, you probably shouldn't tell Vic that."

"It's not like I got involved on _purpose_ ," Mac said. "It just kind of happened."

"But then you got to do something that you were good at, and you got to help somebody."

"And it was exciting," he said, ruefully. "I'm _still_ a little buzzed from it."

"You know what?" Li Ann said. "I think you should _definitely_ talk to Ben about getting back into performing. It's a much safer way to get that rush."

"You think I'm an adrenaline junkie?"

"Yes," Li Ann said. No point in sugar-coating it.

Mac let out a hoarse chuckle. "Okay, yeah," he said. "I'll talk to Ben. You have to help me think of a good drag name, though."

Li Ann smiled. "I love you, Mac."

"I love you too," he said softly.

"And thanks for—the advice," she added. "I feel a lot better now that I have a plan." She sighed a little. "I wish I could come over and sleep with you tonight, though."

"Yeah, probably _not_ a good idea," he said. And punctuated it with a short, muffled coughing fit.

"Well, I couldn't even if you _didn't_ have the plague," she said. "I've got Li Jing staying at my apartment."

"What, really? Man. How's that working out?"

Li Ann shrugged. "She doesn't want to talk very much. I'm not really sure what to do with her. I should go, though—I said I'd bring her lunch."

"Okay. Uh, say hi to her for me?"

"I will," Li Ann promised. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"You too," he said.

* * *

Li Jing was sleeping when Li Ann got home. Li Ann opened the curtains, turned on the overhead light—the daylight was too weak to fully brighten the room—and shook Li Jing's foot.

"Hm? Oh, hi," Li Jing said, blinking at her blearily.

"I brought lunch," Li Ann said. "And some other things. Get dressed."

Li Jing shuffled off to the bathroom, and came back a few minutes later dressed in one of the outfits Li Ann had bought her. Li Ann had laid out the food on the table, but she handed the other items to Li Jing directly. "Here," she said. "I thought you might like these."

She'd gotten Li Jing a large blank sketchbook, and a box of drawing pencils. She'd also gone to a bookstore in Chinatown and bought several comic books for her—Li Ann hadn't been sure what to pick, but she'd selected a few different ones with characters who looked sort of similar to the drawings Li Jing had been making last night.

Li Jing flipped through the books. "I like this one," she said. "I don't like this one. Um, I've never read this one, and you got me number seven."

"Is that ... bad?" Li Ann asked. Li Jing had sounded a little unenthusiastic.

"Well, it won't make a lot of sense." Li Jing frowned at the books for another moment, then shook herself a bit as though just remembering her situation; she gave Li Ann a quick bow, and said, "Thank you."

"I have to go back to work," Li Ann said. "But I'll see you tonight. You should try to stay awake for the rest of the day—you'll never get over the jet lag otherwise."

Li Jing bowed again, letting her hair fall over her face. "Yes, Li Ann," she said.

* * *

The Director called Li Ann to the briefing room before the end of the day.

"Paul's in the gang," she said. "We don't need Li Jing for anything else—she's told us everything she knows. Can I put you in charge of her travel arrangements back to Hong Kong? You know who to talk to, to get her a passport."

Li Ann stared at the Director in dismay. "I can't send her back to Hong Kong. She doesn't have anybody to go back to."

"They do have social services there," the Director pointed out. "I'm sure with a few phone calls you can make sure that somebody will meet her at the airport and take her in hand. Let me know if you need some credentials to use while you're calling around."

"She doesn't want to go into another group home," Li Ann said. "She said she'd run away and go back on the streets if she ended up in one."

The Director sighed and sat back, looking at Li Ann. "That's too bad," she said. "But it's not your problem."

"What if she stayed with me?" Li Ann hadn't planned to say it—it just slipped out.

The Director raised an eyebrow.

"I could be her guardian," Li Ann said, thinking fast now. "The Agency could get her Canadian residency papers, no problem. She could take English classes first, and then go to high school."

The Director was shaking her head slowly. "No," she said. "That's a terrible idea."

"She's barely older than Mac was when he landed in Hong Kong," Li Ann pointed out. " _He_ adjusted. She could too."

"Let's leave aside the implausibility of using _Mac's_ life as a blueprint for any sort of reasonable plan," the Director said. "I do take your point that she's young, and capable of adjusting to all sorts of changes in circumstances. I don't think that Canada is an inherently better place for her than Hong Kong would be, but it's not necessarily _worse_. But Li Ann, I'm sorry, however admirable your impulse, you are not a fit guardian for a teenage girl."

"You don't know that," Li Ann said.

The Director tapped her fingernails on the desk's surface and looked at Li Ann. "Tell me about your houseplants."

Li Ann frowned, thrown by the off-topic question. "I don't have any houseplants."

"I know," the Director said. "Tell me _why_ you don't have houseplants."

 _Because I don't want to commit to looking after any_ was the true answer, but now Li Ann saw what the Director was getting at, so she just said, "I don't like dirt."

Oh. Maybe that wasn't a better answer. The Director just looked at her, patiently.

"She's not a plant," Li Ann said. "She deserves a place to live that's safe."

"She does," the Director agreed. "And, being a child who's been through a lot, she needs adults who can prioritize looking after her. Who can cope when she pushes boundaries and lashes out. Who can give her a normal, stable life. That's not you, Li Ann. You work for a shadowy government agency, and you're only barely coming to terms with your own traumatic history. You ran away from your own two-year-old daughter—you _fled_ the _country_. Keep working on that relationship. Let somebody else look after Li Jing."

"What about Mac and Vic?" Li Ann asked. "They would help." She was grasping at straws.

The Director rolled her eyes. "Vic has enough on his plate looking after Taylor and Mac."

Li Ann sank back in her chair, feeling frustrated and helpless. "If the godfather hadn't taken me in—" she started.

"Oh, by all means, let's find a nice crime lord to adopt her," the Director interrupted dryly. "That always ends well."

"Adopt," Li Ann repeated, sitting up straight again. "My cover story—I'm supposed to be working for an adoption agency, doing placement interviews. What if I could do that for real? Please? Give me three days. Let me find a home for Li Jing."

"Three days?" The Director looked a little skeptical, but then she shrugged. "You can use the contacts from the real agency we're using in your cover. I'll issue you credentials. If this doesn't work, though—she gets on a plane to Hong Kong. She can't stay with you."

"I know," Li Ann admitted. "I knew all along. I just ... I think I see a lot of myself, in her."

"That's exactly the problem," the Director murmured.


	17. Chapter 17

Finding perfect new parents for a troubled fourteen-year-old girl turned out to be a lot harder than finding criminals with moderately useful skill sets who could be pressured into working for the Agency.

The first level of the weeding-out process was straightforward, but unfortunately left Li Ann with very few candidates. The prospective parents needed to speak Cantonese—at least passably, if not fluently.

She'd started with hundreds of files, and soon she was down to ten. And then she read the files in detail, and discovered that they were all hoping to adopt babies.

A few of the couples were open to preschoolers. Nobody was looking for a teenager.

"I'm looking at the wrong pool," Li Ann said to the Director at their meeting the next day. "There _are_ people who adopt teenagers, right? They just don't go through this agency."

"The private agencies specialize in infant adoptions," the Director agreed. "Placement of older children is generally the business of the government. The foster care system is rather overburdened, though. And Li Jing is not going to pass for Canadian."

"Get me access to the files," Li Ann said. "I'll figure something out."

At dinner, she didn't tell Li Jing what she was up to. She just gave her more comics. This time Li Ann had asked a young woman who'd been browsing the comics at the bookstore for help. Li Jing seemed a lot happier with the results.

Li Jing shyly showed Li Ann what she'd been working on all day—her own comics, drawn carefully in the sketchbook with all of the elements of the real ones. Panels, speech bubbles, the characters moving and interacting. Mostly the two main characters seemed to go to school and wonder about whether they should kiss each other, but occasionally they fought monsters.

"This is really good!" Li Ann said enthusiastically, although she had no real frame of reference.

Li Jing shrugged and looked down, but also smiled.

And yet the evening was awkward. Li Ann said good night and retreated into her bedroom two hours before she was ready to go to sleep.

She called Mac. She told him about her progress (or lack thereof) in the search for new parents for Li Jing. She told him about Li Jing's drawings.

"Use that," Mac said. "Find her somebody who's interested in art, and stories. That way they'll have something in common."

"I'm not exactly spoiled for choice, here," Li Ann pointed out. "Once I've eliminated the families who don't speak Cantonese, there's hardly anybody left."

"So don't eliminate them," Mac said. "She's going to have to learn English anyway, if she's going to stay here."

"But how could somebody take care of her if they can't even speak to her?"

"We managed," Mac pointed out.

He was talking about when he'd first arrived at the Tang household, Li Ann realized. "You spoke a _little_ Cantonese," she reminded him. "And Michael and the godfather spoke English."

"But they weren't around much, were they? So I learned fast. She will too. You could arrange for a translator to visit regularly, to help sort things out." There was a break while he muffled the phone and coughed. Then he continued, "She might appreciate having to take it slow with getting to know the new parents, anyway."

Li Ann nodded thoughtfully. "Thanks," she said. "I hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks," Mac said. She could hear him coughing again as they hung up.

* * *

Find somebody who was interested in art?

That wasn't an easy thing to search for in the files. Mostly what she got was the prospective parents' ages, their professions, and some kind of short statement about why they wanted to take in foster kids.

A lot of them were religious. That wasn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but Li Ann didn't want somebody who would make Li Jing feel dirty for having engaged in prostitution.

She selected a few promising-looking candidates, and started calling around.

Nobody was surprised that she wanted to interview them, or that she was ready to see them in their homes shortly after the phone call.

Unfortunately, the prostitution seemed to be a major stumbling block for everybody she talked to.

"I feel terrible for the poor girl," said one woman, squeezing her husband's hand and looking sadly at Li Ann. It was the afternoon's fourth iteration of the same conversation. "But we have the other kids to think of, and I really think that would be too much for us to handle."

By the end of the day, Li Ann was wondering if she should have been less forthcoming about Li Jing's history.

When she retreated into her bedroom that night, she called Mac again but got Vic instead.

"Mac's already in bed," Vic said. "He's been running a fever since this afternoon. I'm going to take him to the doctor tomorrow morning."

"Uh oh," Li Ann said, momentarily distracted from her own troubles. "Do you think it might be pneumonia again?"

"That's what I'm worried about, yeah," Vic said. "And you know how hard it is to get a straight answer from him about how sick he's feeling—but he didn't argue when I suggested that he go to bed right after supper. Geneviève says she can take the morning off work to look after Taylor while Mac and I go to the clinic."

"Okay," Li Ann said. This wasn't great news, but at least Vic had things in hand.

"How's your search going?" Vic asked. "For a place for Li Jing?" She hadn't talked about it with him, yet, but of course Mac would have told him.

"Not very well," she said. "Nobody who's already taken in kids wants to expose them to a fourteen-year-old who's been working in the sex trade. Do you think I should withhold that information? I thought it would be better if the parents knew, but now it seems like nobody wants her."

"No, I think your first instinct was right," Vic said. "Hiding your histories never did you or Mac any favours, did it? Whoever's looking after her needs to know what happened, so they can support her. Maybe you can find somebody who doesn't already have kids?"

"It seems like as soon as a couple willing to take an older kid gets approved, they get a placement almost right away," Li Ann said. "I've hardly found any pending files with no kids."

"Oh," Vic said. "Well, maybe you could—"

"Wait," she cut him off. "I just had a thought. I need to go."

The Director had given her access codes for _all_ of the ministry's files on prospective foster parents—including the rejected ones.

She opened up her laptop and started speed-reading.

At first, the results were discouraging. These people had been rejected as foster parents for good reasons.

But the Agency—the _real_ Agency, Li Ann's Agency—specialized in finding uses for people who had been thoroughly rejected by society. Normally Li Ann combed through lists of criminals, sifting through details of horrific crimes and thinking about the job skills they implied. By comparison, this was light reading.

She kept scanning the files. Too young. Too old. Too broken. Suspected petty drug dealers. Hoarders with eighteen cats ( _eighteen_ cats?).

Around one-thirty in the morning, she hit on a possible gem. It wasn't a couple, it was a single woman. Meredith. Thirty-five years old. Under profession it said 'artist', which was the first thing that had caught Li Ann's eye about the file. Reading further, it specified 'independent comic book writer, webcomics(???)'—the question marks were right in the file. The assessing social worker had written 'Insufficient/unstable financial means. Lack of demonstrated capacity to take care of a child.'

What _was_ a webcomic, anyway? Li Ann typed the term into AltaVista. The result was enlightening, if also puzzling—apparently, people were publishing their art for _free_ on the internet.

Li Ann began to suspect that the unflattering assessment of Meredith's financial situation had been accurate, but that didn't mean this couldn't work—the Agency had resources which could be quietly brought to bear. And how could someone demonstrate their capacity to take care of a child, if they'd never had a child before?

In the field reserved for the prospective parent's own statement, Meredith had said that she was open to taking in an older child with a difficult background, and also that she was interested in permanent adoption. So that all seemed promising.

Li Ann typed Meredith's full name into AltaVista, and found her comics.

They weren't visually similar to Li Jing's work. Li Jing drew pretty, big-eyed adolescents with smooth, neat lines. Meredith's drawings were more jagged. They had a harshness to them that at first glance looked amateur but, applied in a consistent, controlled way, ultimately spoke of skill—like a master calligrapher writing a poem with too-fast brush strokes so that the characters would seem always on the verge of blowing off the page.

There was a link to the first comic. It was a series, apparently? Li Ann clicked though, and started reading.

She read until she was squinting so much from sleepiness that she could barely make out the text. The comic seemed to be a story about the day-to-day life of a woman in her twenties. Unlike Li Jing's comics, no giant monsters showed up. But like Li Jing's comics, there was some attention paid to kissing.

The woman in Meredith's comic was apparently a lesbian—it was never stated outright, but all of the kissing adventures were with other women. The woman was also working a dead-end clerical job, and getting annoyed with smarmy men in her workplace. In the evenings, she dressed in leather jackets and went out to clubs and had conversations about politics with women who had buzz-cuts and men who wore eyeliner.

In issue #52 (the comic was separated into pages with 6 to 12 panels apiece, and each one was labelled as an 'issue'), a friend was introduced who seemed to be a gay male prostitute. This impression was confirmed in issue #54. The main character seemed a bit worried about her gay prostitute friend, but not horrified or disgusted.

So all in all, Meredith seemed like a promising candidate. Li Ann decided to call her first thing in the morning. She shut down her computer and collapsed into bed, feeling hopeful.

It seemed like she'd barely shut her eyes when the phone rang.

Li Ann scrambled to answer it so it wouldn't wake Li Jing. She caught it on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Hi, it's me," Vic said. "I'm about to head to the ER with Mac. I thought you'd want to know."

Adrenaline rush. "Oh my god," Li Ann said. "What's going on?"

"His fever spiked and he's not breathing very well," Vic said. "Huang's going to drive us. We're going to the North York General."

"I'll meet you there," Li Ann said.

"No," Vic said. He sounded strangely calm. "You don't need to do that. I promise to call again and let you know how things are going. But you've got Li Jing to look after. We don't need you for anything right now—I just called because I knew you'd be upset if you only found out afterwards."

"I _am_ upset," Li Ann said. It was a useless, unhelpful thing to say. She knew that.

"I'm sorry," Vic said. "I've got to go. I'll call again soon, I promise."

Dial tone.

Li Ann put the phone down and sat on the bed.

Saw the steel doors sliding shut between her and Mac under the noodle factory.

Mac dangling from a burning rope, four stories up the side of a building.

Mac collapsing to the floor of the bar, the Cleaners pressing the adrenaline syringe into her hand.

Mac limp under the fallen light fixture in the soy mill, Pucci's bombs ticking down all around him.

Mac on their mattress bed in the Key River safe house, delirious with fever.

" _Fuck_ ," Li Ann said, and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Li Jing asked, from the bedroom door.

Li Ann startled, dropping her hands quickly. She hadn't even heard the door open.

"Sorry," Li Jing said. "The phone woke me up. I thought maybe—the phone in the middle of the night, it must be bad. Is it about me?"

"No," Li Ann said, giving her eyes another quick swipe with the back of her hand to make sure no tears were going to fall. "Nothing about you. You can go back to bed."

Li Jing didn't move. "Why are you crying?"

Li Ann cleared her throat and wiped her eyes again. She was definitely _not_ crying. But trying to argue about it wouldn't get her anywhere.

She supposed she might as well tell the truth. "I just found out that my brother is sick. I'm worried about him."

"You mean Mac?" Li Jing asked. "Does it have to do with how his arm got hurt?"

Li Ann shook her head. "Nothing related to that. There was ... we were in a fire, last summer. His lungs were damaged. Now he gets sick easily, and I just found out he's going to the hospital." She was careful to keep what she said consistent with the version of the story they'd worked out for general audiences. Who knew who Li Jing might end up talking to, if she stayed in Toronto.

"Are you scared he'll die?" Li Jing asked.

Li Ann knew she should say 'no', and insist that Li Jing go back to bed.

But she couldn't. So she just sat there and didn't say anything, and the fucking tears started spilling out of her eyes again.

Li Jing cautiously walked into the room, sat next to her, and put an arm lightly around her shoulders. "I hope he doesn't," she said. "He seems really nice."

That did not help Li Ann stop crying.

After a minute Li Jing's arm withdrew. She left Li Ann's side, left the room, and came back with a kleenex box.

Li Ann dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. "Sorry," she said. "He _will_ be fine. I'm just tired."

"Why do you call him your brother?" Li Jing asked, settling cross-legged on Li Ann's bed, a little apart from her.

"We were adopted into the same family," Li Ann said. "When we were teenagers."

"So—after." Li Jing looked down at Li Ann's bedspread; a curtain of hair hid her eyes from Li Ann. "You were adopted after?"

"Yes," Li Ann said, immediately realizing what Li Jing was getting at. "After the brothel."

"Did they know?" she asked. "Your new parents?"

"Yes," Li Ann said. "Are you worried about that?"

Li Jing looked up, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Right. Li Ann hadn't actually told Li Jing that she was trying to find new parents for her. Maybe it was time that she did. "I've been looking for a place for you to stay," she said. "Since you don't want to go back to Hong Kong."

"What kind of place?" Li Jing asked, frowning.

"A family," Li Ann said. "Well, maybe just a foster mom. Is that okay?"

Li Jing shrugged, and let her hair cascade again. "If she's nice," she said. "And doesn't hit me."

"That is the number one thing I'll be looking for," Li Ann promised. "But ... you'll have to learn English. Are you up for that?"

Li Jing looked up and smiled. "I learned some English in school already! _Hello. My name is Li Jing. How are you?_ " Her accent was so thick that the words were almost unintelligible. She shrugged at the end of the phrase and said, "That's all I remember."

Li Ann smiled back at her. "Well, it's a start. Hey—could I borrow your sketchbook tomorrow? I'm going to talk to a woman who might be able to take you in, and I think that looking at your comics would help her to appreciate how cool you are."

"Okay," Li Jing said. She twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "Were your new parents nice?"

"Oh." Li Ann swallowed. She didn't want to _lie_ to Li Jing, although obviously she had to withhold a great deal of the truth. "That's a complicated question."

Li Jing looked at her, puzzled.

"No," Li Ann said. "He wasn't nice. But he was good to us, for the most part."

Li Jing shrugged, apparently satisfied enough by Li Ann's evasive answer. She yawned. "I want to sleep," she said.

"That's fine," Li Ann said. "Go back to bed. I'm going to wait up until I hear back from Vic."

"Who?"

Oh, right, Li Jing didn't know about Vic. "Mac's partner," Li Ann said. And then, after a moment's thought, she clarified with a less ambiguous term: "His boyfriend."

Just because Meredith drew a webcomic about a lesbian didn't necessarily mean that she was, herself, queer—but it was probably a good idea to sound Li Jing out on the topic, just in case.

"Mac is gay?" Li Jing looked slightly dismayed.

Li Ann eyed Li Jing. "Do you think that homosexuality is wrong?"

"What? No. But he's so _hot_."

"Vic certainly thinks so," Li Ann murmured. And then noticed that Li Jing was blushing beet red.

 _Oh_.

Well, Mac had freed her from a locked basement, fought a gangster for her, and bought her cookies. A little crush was totally understandable.

"Don't tell him I said that," Li Jing said, hiding her face with her hands.

"It's okay," Li Ann said. "I promise I won't."

"Would you like me to keep you company?" Li Jing asked then, to Li Ann's surprise. "While you wait for Mac's boyfriend to call? I might fall asleep but I could stay in here."

Li Ann drew a breath to say 'no'—but stopped herself.

She was feeling lonely and anxious. Li Jing's offer was kindly meant, and sweet.

Apparently Li Ann's face had said 'yes' while she was hesitating, because Li Jing uncurled her legs and lay down on Li Ann's bed. Then she patted the mattress in front of her. "You can lie down too," she said. "Don't worry, if you fall asleep and then the phone rings it'll wake you up again."

Li Ann lay down—a little hesitantly.

Li Jing gave her a sleepy, encouraging smile, and intertwined fingers with her. "You can tell me about the family that adopted you and Mac," she said.

Oh, god. A quick fresh adrenaline spike made Li Ann feel wide awake again.

But, okay. They'd been with the Tangs for ten years. Surely Li Ann could come up with _some_ innocuous stories.

"The family..." Li Ann said. "Well, there was no mother. It was only Father. And he had a son, who was older than us. They had a pretty big house. Mac and I felt a little lost in it, at first. But it was a place that we could feel safe—" Had Mac ever felt safe, with Michael? Maybe not. But Li Ann had, in the early years at least. "And we were really happy to have enough to eat. Before we lived there, we were hungry sometimes. Did you ever have to go hungry?"

Li Jing nodded, biting her lip. "After I ran away. I had some money when I left, but it didn't last very long. The day it ran out, I only had a bag of chips to eat in the whole day. And the next day I ate noodles from the garbage behind a restaurant."

"So you understand," Li Ann said.

A quiet nod. And then Li Jing asked, "Did you have trouble learning English?"

"Oh, this was still in Hong Kong," Li Ann said. "I did learn English, but later, from lessons. Mac was the one who had to learn a language fast when we were adopted—but he _did_. Within a year, I think, he was totally fluent."

"A _year_?" Li Jing repeated, looking intimidated.

"You'll be able to get by okay much sooner than that," Li Ann assured her quickly. "And—I'll check in on you every day at first." Was that a promise she could keep? Fuck, she shouldn't make promises she couldn't keep.

"Thanks," Li Jing said, and her eyelids drifted closed.

Li Ann let herself close her eyes, too. Li Jing was right—the phone would wake her up.

Before sleep could overtake her again, she carefully gathered her attention and performed Mac's fast-forwarding exercise. She'd been doing it every night since he told her about it. Now, after summoning up the past for Li Jing, it seemed especially important.

The hungry little girl disappeared behind the horizontal lines of static. Fast, jerky movement—ten years with the Tangs, jail, the flight to Vancouver, meeting Vic and training at the Agency, it all flashed by in seconds.

She wasn't sure where to stop. The present didn't feel very comforting, right now. Not with Mac in danger.

She went past the present. She had to. She imagined Vic calling to tell her that Mac was going to be okay. She imagined Mac and Vic back in their rooms in Geneviève and Huang's house—Mac sitting on the bed, say, propped up with pillows, and Li Ann and Vic cuddled on either side of him. Li Ann reading to Mac from _Three Hundred Tang Poems_ , and Mac translating them stanza-by-stanza for Vic in the most irreverent way possible. Li Ann trying to glare at him, and failing. All three of them laughing together.

It wasn't a guaranteed future, but it was a plausible one she could cling to. She kept it firmly in her mind as she drifted off to sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

Meredith lived over a hardware store on Queen Street.

"Come in," she said, standing aside to let Li Ann into her apartment. "Wow, um, let me find you a place to sit..."

Meredith was shorter than Li Ann had expected—but why had Li Ann had that expectation? Maybe because the main character in her webcomic was tall. Meredith's head only came up to Li Ann's chin. She wore her red hair in a buzz cut, and was dressed in a blue-and-green plaid flannel shirt and frayed, loose-fitting jeans.

"I was surprised to get your call this morning," Meredith said, moving stacks of books from the couch to the floor. "They told me months ago that I didn't qualify."

"Well, a situation has come up," Li Ann said evenly. She perched in the cleared place on the couch, and looked around the room.

The walls were lined with crowded bookshelves. There was a slanted drawing desk over by the window, and cluttered shelves and baskets of art supplies surrounding it.

"It's a one bedroom," Meredith confirmed, interpreting Li Ann's look. "But I would take the sofa bed. The—well, if there was a kid, they could have the bedroom."

"Why would you want to take in a foster kid and give up your bedroom?" Li Ann asked. That hadn't been her _planned_ first question, but it was her most pressing one now. _Lack of demonstrated capacity to take care of a child,_ the assessment had said.

"Well, from what I understand foster kids really need a sense of security and privacy," Meredith said. "And I don't mind the sofa bed. I do the same thing when I have house guests. Well, obviously if I had a kid here, I wouldn't have as many house guests. Or they'd sleep out here in the studio with me. Ah, not that I sleep with a lot of people! ... Would you like some coffee?"

"Sure," Li Ann said, mostly in the hopes that the act of making it would relax Meredith. "I meant, why did you apply to be a foster parent, when you don't even have a spare room?"

"Well, I'm not likely to ever be able to afford a spare room in Toronto, am I?" Meredith said. She'd moved into the kitchen space, but was still easily able to have a conversation with Li Ann—there was only a low counter separating the kitchen area from the studio room.

"But why apply to be a foster parent, then?"

Meredith spilled coffee grounds on the counter, swore, winced, apologized, and then said, "Why does anybody want to be a parent?"

"I'm not sure," Li Ann said honestly.

Meredith gave her a funny look.

Oh, maybe that wasn't what an actual child protective services worker would have said.

"Most people are looking for a baby," Li Ann said. _This_ she knew from the files.

"I don't really like babies," Meredith said. " _Shit_ , I wasn't supposed to say that, was I? I mean, they're great. Other people's babies are great. But I'm on my own here, and—well, I understand that an older kid can be a lot of work too, but it's different, at least you can _talk_ to them."

Er. About that. "The girl that I'm trying to place," Li Ann said, "doesn't actually speak English. Yet."

Meredith looked up, frowning. "You said on the phone that she was fourteen? Is she— _crap_ , sorry, I forget the polite word. Disabled? I'm not sure I could handle—"

"No," Li Ann clarified quickly, "she's fine. But she only speaks Cantonese."

Meredith raised her eyebrows. Took a moment to pour the two cups of coffee, and returned to the couch. "Okay, _what's_ the story with this kid?"

"She was brought over from Hong Kong by a gang," Li Ann said, holding the coffee mug carefully in both hands. "For prostitution."

Meredith blinked. "Holy shit," she said. But then she frowned again. "Shouldn't she be going back home, though?"

"She doesn't feel safe going back to Hong Kong," Li Ann said. "She ran away from an abusive home, and she doesn't have any support network there. The Crown has determined that she can be granted residency here on compassionate grounds." That last part was 40% bullshit, 60% if-Li-Ann-said-it-was-true-then-the-Agency-made-it-true. "But of course she needs a place to stay. And a lot of people are put off by her history."

"And not the language thing?" Meredith said, a little faintly.

"She's very bright," Li Ann promised. "She'll learn English quickly. And I can provide some translation at first." There she was, making that promise again. She _really_ hoped the Director would let her make some room in her schedule for this.

Meredith was looking daunted. Li Ann decided it was time to bring out the sketchbook. "She's such a sweet kid," Li Ann said, rummaging in her shoulder bag. "She loves to draw—I saw that you're an artist, too, so I thought you might like to see her work."

With a slightly bemused look, Meredith accepted the sketchbook and opened it up. As soon as she did, though, she broke into a broad grin. "Hey, I know these guys!" she said. She stood up and went over to one of her bookshelves, and came back with a small paperback comic book. She opened it up and showed Li Ann.

Li Ann recognized the main boy and girl characters right away. "She did say that the characters weren't hers," Li Ann mentioned, in case Meredith might be upset with Li Jing for plagiarizing.

"No, of course, this is doujinshi," Meredith said. "Fan comics." She turned back to Li Jing's sketchbook, flipping through a few more pages. "This is _great_."

Li Ann felt very pleased on Li Jing's behalf. She took another look at the comic book that Meredith had handed her. It was in Japanese—Li Ann could recognize the characters, but she couldn't read it. "Do you read Japanese?" she asked.

"A little," Meredith said. "But no Chinese, unfortunately." She pointed at the sketchbook page. "Would you mind telling me what this says?"

So Li Ann translated Li Jing's comic for Meredith. Meredith chuckled at bits of the dialogue, and let out an 'awww' when the boy declared undying love for the girl at the end of the second page.

Li Ann thought this was going pretty well.

"So can I bring her over before lunch?" Li Ann asked.

Meredith's eyes went wide. " _Today_. Now. You're talking right now. Of course you are. They warned me it could happen like this—but they also told me I didn't _qualify_ , oh my god. You're sure?"

Li Ann nodded. She was satisfied that Meredith met Li Jing's criteria of 'nice', and 'wouldn't hit her'.

"She doesn't speak English," Meredith said, half under her breath. "And she's been a sex worker. And she makes doujinshi. Oh my _god_ , I'm going to have a kid."

"So that's a yes?" Li Ann asked.

"Yes," Meredith confirmed, wide-eyed and a little breathless. "Do I need to sign something?"

"Not right now," Li Ann said, making a mental note to figure out some paperwork for this later. "Maybe just start tidying up the bedroom. I'll be back with her soon."

* * *

Li Jing approached the door of her new home with an anxious expression, clutching two plastic shopping bags containing all the things she owned in the world—the pyjamas, three changes of clothes, six comic books, a sketchbook, a box of pencils and a toothbrush.

Meredith let them in. She wasn't alone in the apartment; she'd been joined by a young Asian woman with pink-dyed hair and a lot of piercings.

"Hi," Meredith said, beaming nervously at them. "You must be Li Jing. This is my friend—well, friend-of-a-friend—Lorie. She's here to give us some translation help."

"Hi," Lorie said in English, offering Li Ann a firm handshake. And then she turned to Li Jing. "This is Meredith," she said, in English-accented Cantonese. "Your new foster mom. She's very excited to meet you."

"Hello," Li Jing said in quiet Cantonese, hanging back a little behind Li Ann. She bowed quickly, slightly.

"She says hello," Lorie said to Meredith, sounding a little bemused.

"Ask her—" Meredith started, addressing Lorie—but then she bit her lip and started again, smiling gently right at Li Jing. "Please come in and sit down. Would you like a glass of water, or something to eat?"

Once Lorie had translated, Li Jing—still looking terribly anxious—removed her boots but not her coat and, bringing her two bags with her, moved tentatively through the apartment over to the sofa. Her wide eyes were taking in her surroundings as she went, and Li Ann was sure she saw her gaze pause on the bookshelves, and on the drawing desk.

Li Ann kept her boots on and stayed just inside the doorway, watching to see how this played out. She was impressed with Meredith's resourcefulness in having conjured a translator out of thin air sometime in the past hour and a half.

The comic book that Meredith had showed Li Ann earlier was still on the sofa. Li Jing sat next to it, appearing to notice it absently at first only as an object that shouldn't be sat upon, but then doing a quick double-take. "This is number seventeen!" she said, all her nervous discomfort falling away in a moment of surprised enthusiasm. "I haven't read it yet!" And then she frowned. "But it's in Japanese."

Lorie translated a little loosely—"She's interested in your comic book."

"She hasn't read that one yet," Li Ann contributed, from the doorway. "Apparently. But she can't read Japanese."

Meredith had gone into the kitchen area to get a glass of water, although Li Jing had never answered the question about whether she wanted one. Now, water in hand, she looked from Lorie to Li Ann, and then to Li Jing. "Would you like me to read it to you?" she asked Li Jing.

Lorie gave Meredith a skeptical look, but then translated the question.

Li Jing looked at Meredith, wide-eyed and nervous again. And nodded.

So Meredith and Lorie joined Li Jing on the couch—Meredith in the middle, with the comic book on her lap, and Li Jing clutching the water glass with one hand and her bags with the other.

"This is really our top priority?" Lorie asked, a little dryly. "You know I have to leave at one thirty."

Meredith nodded. "This first. Then we'll sort out some logistics." She opened to the first page of the comic—what would have been the end, in a Western-published book. "Have you read number sixteen?" she asked Li Jing. "Do you know what's happening?"

"Yes," Li Jing said as soon as the question was translated, and launched into a summary of improbable plot events and romantic adventures.

Li Ann stood where she was and listened for a few minutes longer, just making sure that everything really was okay.

Meredith and Li Jing were somehow managing to get really excited, together, about the ongoing plot of these ridiculous-sounding comic books—undaunted even by the fact that all of their communication was passing through Lorie, who clearly did not share their enthusiasm.

Mac had been right. _Find somebody interested in art, and stories._ The right _kind_ of art and stories, specifically.

"I've got to get going," Li Ann interjected finally, easing a half step backwards. "If you need anything, you have my number." She'd said it in English—she was about to repeat herself for Li Jing, but she heard Lorie already murmuring a translation.

"To the hospital?" Li Jing asked immediately.

Li Ann nodded.

Vic had called again around seven-thirty in the morning to let Li Ann know that Mac was being admitted, and that his condition was 'serious but not critical'. Afterwards, Li Ann had sat on her bed for a while, staring at the wall, and then had been surprised by Li Jing pressing a fresh cup of tea into her hands.

"Tell him I hope he feels better soon," Li Jing said.

"I will," Li Ann promised.

As she left, she heard Lorie translating that exchange for Meredith, and Meredith asking, " _Who_ 's in the hospital?"

Li Ann didn't stay to see how Li Jing would answer. Li Jing didn't know enough to compromise the Agency, and most of what she thought she knew was wrong.

Li Ann had done everything she reasonably could for Li Jing. Now she needed to be with Mac.

* * *

Li Ann got access to Mac's room easily, by identifying herself as immediate family to the nurse on duty at the desk.

She thought about that, walking down the short corridor. About the lack of security. The nurse had just taken her word for it.

(It wasn't as though the hospital had the means to shield Mac from somebody like Paul, in any case. Li Ann was just fundamentally unnerved by anybody who automatically _trusted_.)

Mac was in a single room. She took the whole thing in at a glance, entering. The head of the bed was canted up at an angle so that Mac was half-sitting, but he seemed to be asleep. There was an oxygen mask strapped over his mouth and nose, an IV pole and some vital sign monitors. Vic sat next to the bed on an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, although there was also a small vinyl-upholstered couch in the room. He was holding Mac's hand.

"Hi," Vic said softly, looking up at her entry. He looked rough, with his one-day growth of beard stubble. Mac's face was similarly shadowed, under the mask.

"Hi," she said. "How is he?"

Vic shrugged. "He's mostly been asleep. His oxygen saturation levels are, um, not great, apparently. But he's not in the ICU, so I guess it's not as bad as the last time?"

"And he's not in restraints," Li Ann pointed out, as long as they were looking for bright sides. "That's an improvement."

Vic nodded, with a rueful grimace. "Yeah, I've been managing that situation. The private room helps—nobody's _seen_ him waking up and freaking out."

"Has it been bad?" Li Ann asked, eyeing Mac with concern.

"Actually, not as bad as the other times he's been sick," Vic said, with a glimmer of real optimism this time. "I think the new meds might actually be helping."

"That's great," Li Ann said. It was a small thing to be grateful for, given how terribly sick and vulnerable Mac looked right now—but if Patricia's new prescriptions meant that even his fever-dreams terrified him less than they usually did, there was real hope that the drugs would ease his regular sleep even more.

At that point, Li Ann realized that she was still standing just inside the doorway to the room. The bed's long side faced the door, and its head was against the wall to Li Ann's left. Vic had pulled his chair up to Mac's right side—maybe just so that he could hold Mac's hand, since Mac's left arm was still in the sling, but it also put Vic between Mac and the door. Li Ann appreciated that.

She went around the bed now to sit down on the little vinyl couch, against the far wall. There was an exterior window over it, but the blinds were shut.

"You're okay to stay for a while?" Vic inferred, watching her take off her coat and lay it beside herself on the couch. "Where's Li Jing?"

"Settling in with her new foster mom," Li Ann said. "Hopefully."

"So you found somebody for her," Vic said, looking pleased at the news.

"Yes. Somebody whose original application to be a foster parent was turned down, but I think she's a good fit for Li Jing," Li Ann said. "She's ... a little unconventional? But she seemed very kind."

"Good," Vic said. "That's important." And then he went silent, just looking at Mac.

"Have you slept at all?" Li Ann asked then.

Vic shook his head, which didn't surprise her. He really looked haggard.

"Why don't we switch places for a bit," she suggested gently. "You can nap."

She knew without being told that he'd been holding Mac's hand all night and all morning, ready to soothe away his fever-amplified nightmares whenever he woke up. It was the kind of thing that Vic would automatically do.

Vic hesitated.

"I can hold his hand, Vic," Li Ann assured him quietly. "And I can guard the door. You don't have to do it alone."

Vic blinked, and took a slightly shaky breath. "Right," he said. "Right, you're—I know you can." He looked down at Mac, and didn't move. "All week," he said, "I was afraid of this. I saw it coming like a slow-moving train wreck. I tried—I tried to protect him. He teased me for fussing over him so much, and I think he only went along with it to humour me, at first, but—he _did_ go along with it. Not like last time, when he was out working for the bikers when he should've been home in bed. But we ended up here anyway."

"He knew it was serious," Li Ann corrected Vic softly. "He might not have said anything to you, but on Saturday, as soon as he realized Taylor was coming down with a cold, he told me to leave. And then on Monday he kept his distance from me, he wouldn't even hug me."

"Shit," Vic said, looking freshly worried. "I didn't think—Li Ann, should you even be here?"

"Don't even fucking _think_ of sending me away," Li Ann said, straightening up so that she could glare properly at Vic. "I accept the risk."

Just like Mac had accepted the risk, when he'd agreed to be a primary caregiver for a preschool child.

Vic thought that Mac was careless—heedless of risks. Li Ann knew that the situation was a little more subtle. Mac did notice risks—he catalogued them compulsively, just like she did. It was a habit they'd drilled into themselves as imperilled children first, and then as professional thieves, and it had served them well as agents. But then Mac _dismissed_ most of those risks—more of them than Li Ann would, _far_ more of them than any normal person would. And that had made him a very effective agent—something which, in her new role as a recruiter of agents, she could really appreciate.

It also made him a terrifying person to love—but she'd opened her heart to him the second time with the full knowledge of what it felt like to lose him, to see him _die_ , to mourn him for a year and a half.

(Speaking of seeing risks, and dismissing them.)

Anyway, she and Mac had discussed _this_ risk back in November when Geneviève and Huang had made their offer of the nanny position to Mac and Vic. They'd discussed it privately that night, without Vic, because they were the ones with the lung damage, and they were Taylor's biological parents.

To start with, Li Ann had just wanted to make sure that Mac had _thought_ of the danger. But of course he had—he'd gotten out of the Sudbury hospital less than three weeks previously.

"Everybody gets colds, Li Ann," Mac had pointed out. "It's not like we can avoid it."

"It'll be worse, though," she had reminded him. "With a little kid." That was the first piece of parenting advice that anyone had ever given them, in their first ten minutes of pretending to be Taylor's mother and father. (Pretending? They _were_ Taylor's mother and father. But they hadn't known that at the time.)

"Yeah," Mac had conceded, not even trying to deny it. "But I love her so much."

And that had been the end of that discussion.

In the present, Vic was still looking at her. Still worried, and not moving from Mac's side.

"I love him," Li Ann reminded Vic softly. "He's my family. He's my _home_. I'm going to be here for him."

"But what if it doesn't even matter?" Vic asked, sounding distressed. "Li Ann, I did everything I could to protect him and he _still_ ended up _here_."

Ah, okay. Vic needed some comfort right now. And Mac was in no position to give it, so Li Ann was just going to have to step up.

Shoving aside her own fears (that inescapable mental slideshow of every time in her life so far that she'd thought she was watching Mac die—all of that, and also that slight _catch_ in her lungs every time she inhaled, which had been with her ever since she stopped coughing up black soot from the cabin fire) she smiled reassuringly at Vic. "You _have_ protected him," she pointed out. "No restraints, remember? And no ICU. You got him here quickly, before it got as bad as the last time."

"True," Vic agreed faintly.

"And I know that you're not insisting on sitting there holding his hand because you're overprotective," Li Ann went on. "You're exactly the _right_ amount of protective. I remember _why_ they put the cuffs on him in Sudbury." Panicking upon waking up sick and alone in the ICU, Mac had tried to run away and had overstrained himself so badly that his heart had stopped. Li Ann had only learned about it a week later, when Mac was well on the road to recovery, so she hadn't had the chance to be as scared about it as Vic had certainly been.

And she'd kept to herself the observation that that event had happened a year to the day after Mac's _previous_ cardiac arrest, the poison-induced one. _That_ one had scared her plenty.

She'd wondered, privately, whether damage from the first event had raised the probability of the second one. But Vic definitely didn't need more things to worry about, and presumably if there really was an issue there, the Agency doctor would have said something at the time.

Or not, shit. The Agency's medical centre was not particularly committed to keeping its agents well-informed about their own health issues.

Li Ann had access to Mac's files now. She'd check later.

For now she just said, "You can look after him better later if you rest now. I'm _here_ , Vic. Three musketeers."

That got her a wan smile. And Vic finally stood up from the chair and came around to the couch, and she wasn't quite sure how it happened but she was giving him a bone-crunching hug, and his tears were wet against the side of her neck.

Okay. So they stood there for a few minutes. And Li Ann kept her eyes open, watchfully on Mac and also on the door, because she _kept_ her promises.

After that, Vic settled on the couch—it was really more of a loveseat—with his knees tucked up double, using Li Ann's balled-up winter coat as a pillow. Li Ann settled in Vic's former place, holding Mac's hand.

This close, she could see the slight fog that each of his exhalations left on the oxygen mask. It was reassuring—an easy visual check that he was breathing. The monitors next to the bed were probably tracking that too, but she didn't know how to read them.

Silence, for a few minutes. Li Ann held Mac's hand, and felt protective.

Of him _and_ of Vic, for that matter. The fact that she was still an agent—she had resources that they didn't.

And both of them, in their different ways, had been damaged more badly than she had.

(Rescuing Taylor had been worth it, no question—even if she hadn't turned out to be their own daughter, she'd been an innocent child. But the Director had miscalculated badly, ordering them to execute that last commando. Mac couldn't bring himself to do it, and Vic had thought he could handle it but it had broken him. If Li Ann ever ran her own team— _when?_ —she would be more careful.)

"Actually I can't sleep," Vic said suddenly into the silence—startling Li Ann, because she'd thought she was effectively alone in the room. "Too keyed up. Too much vending-machine coffee, maybe."

"Okay," Li Ann said. "Stay there. We can chat. Maybe you'll drift off."

"Chat about _what_?" Vic said, shifting anxiously on the couch. "Li Ann, I just keep thinking about waking up last night and seeing his lips turning blue."

Li Ann remembered how calm Vic had sounded on the phone, telling her that they were heading for the hospital and they didn't need her. She had known, even at the time, that Vic was definitely panicking, that he was just really good at pushing it down in a crisis.

"We can talk about other things," she said. Thought about it for a minute. "Remember when we thought that we were going to get married?"

Vic let out a surprised laugh. "Yeah," he said. "Of course I do."

"And here we are," Li Ann said. "Family after all."

"Not at _all_ in the way that I pictured," Vic said. He squirmed around a little, easing his position on the couch. She was managing to get him to relax a little, at least—she could hear it in his voice.

"I've wondered, since then," Li Ann said, "why you said yes. When I asked you to marry me, I mean. We barely knew each other."

"Oh my god," he said softly. "I was lonely. And Li Ann, you were beautiful. And amazingly competent. And—cool, like _chilly_ , but then suddenly you were interested in me, and it was like I didn't know what hit me."

"Hm," Li Ann said. It was an odd sensation, picturing herself through Vic's eyes.

"Why did you ask?"

"Just curious," Li Ann shrugged. "At the time, it didn't even occur to me to wonder, but now that I know you better—I'm not really your type, am I?"

"Hah, I meant why did you ask me to _marry_ you, not why did you ask me about it right now," Vic said, sounding a little amused. "But actually Li Ann, you are _totally_ my type. Or at least—you were, when I thought you were into me."

"Into you?" Li Ann repeated with a delicate snort. "You think _that's_ your type? Anybody who will have you? Vic, I thought you had better self-esteem than that."

"It's a crucial factor," Vic said, not even defensively. "You think it would be better if I was into people who _aren't_ into me? It's not the _only_ factor, though. Anyway, you still haven't answered the question."

Li Ann sighed, feeling her brief joking smile fade away. "I was running away from my past. You seemed like the opposite of everything I'd known before."

"The opposite of Mac?" Vic suggested, not joking either.

"In a lot of ways, absolutely," Li Ann agreed. "The opposite of the Tangs, more so." Then she frowned at Vic. He'd said she was his type, and he'd said it ruefully. "I was never a wounded bird."

"What? Jesus, has _everybody_ at the Agency read my psych file?"

"No. Nikki read it, and she told _you_. You told _me_ one night when we were drinking."

"Did I?" Vic frowned. "I don't remember that."

"It was after Gloria," Li Ann supplied helpfully.

"Oh, fuck, _that_ night," Vic groaned. "Yeah, I don't remember anything after the first blue drink." He shot her a worried look. "Was _Mac_ there? I've never—I'm not sure how he would feel about that whole 'wounded bird' thing."

"No, he'd gone back undercover with the transgendered contract killers by then," Li Ann said.

"Oh, right."

"I won't mention the 'wounded bird' thing to Mac," Li Ann said, "if you promise never to imply again that I _was_ one." She said it lightly, like she was joking around. Which she was. Sort of.

"Li Ann..." Vic said, not joking. "I didn't know back then about everything that you'd been through. But I knew that you were mourning your previous lover, who'd died—you told me that much. And I heard you crying in the bathroom sometimes after we had sex."

"You _heard_ that?" Li Ann asked, appalled.

"You obviously didn't want me to say anything," Vic said. "So I didn't. I hoped that eventually you'd open up to me. And then he came back from the dead, so..." He shrugged. "The rest is history."

"The rest is the _present_ ," Li Ann corrected him. Mac's hand was rough and warm in her own. His breath fogged the oxygen mask, rhythmically. "Do you think the wounded-bird thing would bother Mac, actually? Last week in the psych ward Patricia told you to your face that you had a caretaker complex, in front of all of us. It bothered you, but I don't think it bothered Mac."

"Calling it that puts the focus on _me_ ," Vic said. "Calling it 'wounded-bird syndrome' puts the focus on _him_. It makes it sound like I only love him because he's broken."

"Vic, Mac knows that you love him for who he is. Don't worry about Patricia's stupid wounded-bird note. Maybe you _are_ attracted to people who need you, but you're happy when he's _happy_ , not when he's hurting."

"Li Ann..." Vic said quietly, "is he ever not hurting?"

"Vic, don't be stupid," was all Li Ann could manage as a comeback to that.

Mac was her bright and shiny brother, and he'd made her laugh from the first day they'd met. (He'd been in pain, recuperating from a stab wound. And, more intangibly, from months of living on the street, vulnerable and alone. Li Ann had been just out of the brothel. Still adjusting to the experience of not starving. They hadn't been able to talk to each other, to tell each other what they'd been through. Even if they'd _had_ a common language, Li Ann suspected they wouldn't have talked about where they'd been. It was more important to focus on surviving where they _were_.)

"Sorry," Vic said, closing his eyes. "I'm exhausted and my nerves are shredded from stress. It's making me maudlin. You're right, I need to nap."

* * *

The next couple of hours were very quiet. Mac did stir once—a fluttering of his eyelids followed by a scared-sounding incoherent mumble, and then he was clawing at the oxygen mask and trying to sit up or maybe climb out of the bed. Li Ann pushed him back down with a firm hand on his good shoulder, and a sharp "Mac, stop it! You can't get out of bed, you're sick."

Mac blinked up at her, hollow-eyed. "Li Ann?" he whispered. "Are you okay? Michael was just here, he's really fucking angry about something."

"I'm fine," Li Ann said. "Michael's been dead for over a year. You're sick, and you're having nightmares. Turn your head, look. Vic's right there."

Obediently, Mac looked over at Vic. He seemed to relax as soon as he saw him. "Oh," he said. He turned back to Li Ann. "Something's wrong," he said. "It's really hard to breathe."

"Uh huh," Li Ann agreed. "You have pneumonia. You're in the hospital. Do you remember Vic bringing you here last night?"

Mac shook his head.

"You should try to sleep some more," Li Ann said. "They've got you on an IV drip, so you don't even need to drink water. Just sleep, okay?" She snaked her hand back down to clutch his. She rubbed her thumb across his knuckles, and watched a tension line vanish from his forehead.

"Don't leave me," he mumbled, closing his eyes.

"I won't," she said. "Or if I'm not here, it'll be Vic."

"That's fine," he said, barely audibly. And then he didn't say anything else.

Vic had been right, Li Ann reflected. That had been _much_ easier than usual.

* * *

Geneviève arrived around three p.m., with an overnight bag.

Vic stirred and sat up, blinking, when she entered the room.

"I brought what you asked for," she said. "And a couple of other things." Then she took a good look at Mac, and raised her hand to her mouth. "Oh my dear," she said. "I knew, but—"

"It's better than the state he was in last night," Vic said.

"Of course," Geneviève said. "It's still a bit of a shock. With the mask, and all." She gave a rueful shrug. "I knew that his lung damage was serious—enough so for him to have been retired—but I suppose that a part of me never _quite_ believed it. After all, he always seemed so strong and healthy. Before now."

"Did you bring his prescriptions?" Vic asked.

"Yes, in the front pocket," Geneviève said, indicating the bag. "And a change of clothes, and your toothbrush. I also brought these..." She unzipped the bag and pulled out a couple of small framed photos, and set them on the small table next to the bed. One was of Taylor. The other one was all six of them—the Bouchard-Wongs, Mac and Vic, and Li Ann herself—posing together at the Lunar New Year party.

Vic gave her a warm smile. "Thanks. He'll like that."

"And I've heard from my mother—she's going to take the train from Quebec City on Sunday, so that she can look after Taylor for as long as you're occupied here."

"Thanks," Vic said again. "Sorry, I know it's ... inconvenient."

Geneviève waved Vic's apology away with a quick gesture. "You warned us from the beginning, and we accepted the limitation. Considering how he got injured in the first place, it would be rather gauche of us to complain, wouldn't it?"

* * *

A doctor came by on rounds not long after Geneviève left.

"Dr. Germain," she introduced herself. "I'll be following—" she checked the chart "—Mac for as long as he's here. What's your relation to the patient?"

She was addressing Vic. He and Li Ann had switched places again, so he was the one sitting at Mac's side and holding his hand. "Um, partner," Vic said, looking slightly flustered. "I mean, boyfriend."

"That's fine," Dr. Germain said. "Do you have power of attorney for personal care decisions?"

"Er ... no? I don't think so," Vic said, now looking mildly panicked. "He's not _dying_ , is he?"

"No, that's not something that we're worried about right now," Dr. Germain said. "But there might be decisions to make while he's incapacitated. Are either of his parents available to be contacted?"

Vic blanched. "Definitely not."

"I'm his sister," Li Ann spoke up.

Dr. Germain looked at her in mild surprise.

"Well, foster-sister," Li Ann amended. "It's not actually a _legal_ relationship..." The godfather had adopted her and Mac in the sense of bringing them into his home, into his family, and raising them as though they were his own. But he'd never given them his family name. He had never, presumably, filled out paperwork.

"Okay," Dr. Germain said. "I'm going to mark on his chart that we don't have contact with an SDM for now—that's a 'substitute decision maker'. An unmarried romantic partner can serve in that role but it isn't automatic—Mac will need to fill out some forms."

Vic was looking thoroughly daunted.

"We'll call Ben," Li Ann said. "He'll help us."

"Is he a relative?" Dr. Germain asked.

"No, a friend," Li Ann said. "A lawyer."

"Great," Dr. Germain said. "Now, I need to wake Mac up for the examination. Would you prefer to do that yourself?"

"Ah, yes," Vic said. He started by patting Mac's hand, and then gently shook his shoulder. Li Ann watched a little nervously—thinking of Mac's tendency to freak out when waking up, and remembering Patricia's dire warnings about staying out of the psych ward.

But finally Mac just opened his eyes, not even flinching. His gaze took in Dr. Germain, Vic and Li Ann, in that order. "Oh, hey, what's up?" he asked. It was hard to hear him—he wasn't quite whispering, but his voice was a sort of soft wheeze, and muffled by the oxygen mask. Li Ann stood up from the couch, and moved closer to the bed.

Dr. Germain introduced herself again, a little absently—her attention was on the vital signs monitor. "Now, I have your chest x-ray from intake," she mentioned, focusing belatedly on Mac. "There's extensive damage, apart from the pneumonia. I see a note here that you were in a fire. When was that?"

"Last May," Li Ann jumped in quickly. She wasn't sure if Vic remembered the apartment fire story, and expecting Mac to keep their stories straight right now was clearly a little unreasonable.

"Where was he treated?" Dr. Germain asked, turning to Li Ann. "It would be helpful if I could get a transfer of medical records."

"It was in Hong Kong," Li Ann said. "It might be ... difficult to get access."

"If you can get me the name of the hospital, I can send a request," Dr. Germain said.

"I'll see what I can do," Li Ann promised.

The Hong Kong hospital was fictional, of course. And they couldn't safely access anything from when they were undercover in Sudbury. But Mac had real medical records, in his own name, at the Agency. Li Ann could probably get a copy of those, at least.

"And the stab wound," Dr. Germain said. "That's a week old? Have there been any difficulties?"

"No," Vic said. "Before he got sick I was changing the bandages twice a day. Um, nobody's done it since we got here, though."

"I'll take a look at it, and I'll put a note in the chart for the nurses," Dr. Germain said. "There's also an intake note about some other medication that he's on?"

"Right, they told me this morning that we should bring in the bottles with the prescription labels," Vic said. "I've got them here." He handed over two pill bottles from the bag that Geneviève had brought.

Dr. Germain read the labels, and her eyebrow twitched up. "I don't know this doctor," she mentioned. "How long have you been on this medication, Mac?"

Mac just looked at Vic, and gave a barely-visible shrug.

"He's been on antidepressants for—about two years, I guess?" Vic said. "But his prescription just changed a week ago."

"This one is an antidepressant," Dr. Germain said, holding up one of the bottles. "At an unusually high dose. _This_ one," holding up the other bottle, "is generally prescribed as an anti-psychotic. Mac, do you know what your diagnosis is?"

" _Not_ psychotic," Mac half-whispered, looking appalled. " _Fuck_ , Patricia."

"He has PTSD," Vic said. "Post-traumatic stress disorder."

"Yes, I know what it stands for," Dr. Germain said, dryly. "When was the precipitating event?"

"It wasn't one thing," Vic said. "There were—a lot of events. When he was a kid, and later."

"And then a week ago he was stabbed, and prescribed an anti-psychotic," Dr. Germain said, squinting at the label again. "Is there a link?"

"No!" Vic said quickly, urgently. "He didn't do anything wrong. The other guy attacked him, he didn't do anything to provoke it."

"In the hospital last week," Li Ann said, "he had a breakdown."

Vic gave her a quick, worried look—a _what the hell do you think you're doing?_ look. But Dr. Germain seemed to be on the verge of making the wrong connections, and Li Ann didn't want her to think that Mac was dangerous.

"That's why Patricia gave him the new medication," she said. "He fainted when the stab wound was being treated, and when he came to he panicked, and he didn't know where he was for the next few hours. He was ... just _lost_ , in some of his terrible memories."

Dr. Germain looked thoughtful. "You're describing a severe PTSD flashback?"

"Yes," Li Ann said.

"Mac, is that something that you'd experienced before?"

Mac looked profoundly trapped. "Yeah," he said, almost inaudibly.

"Okay, it's a little off-label, but—yes, that would explain the anti-psychotic." Dr. Germain nodded absently, and put the pill bottles down on the bedside table, next to the photographs. "I'll note the medications in your chart, and as soon as I'm done here I'll send a nurse in to give you a catch-up dose. I know that you're used to taking your medication on your own, but as long as you're in the hospital it's important to wait for a nurse, so that it can all be tracked."

"Got it," Vic said, sounding relieved at the resolution. "Oh, I guess you need these, too, then." He fished Mac's two inhalers out of the overnight bag.

Dr. Germain checked those labels too. "This is for asthma?"

"Not exactly," Li Ann said. "He developed a bronchospasm condition after the fire."

"These labels are missing the prescriber information," Dr. Germain said, setting them down on the bedside table with a frown. "Who's his family doctor?"

Li Ann shared a quick, blank look with Vic. The Agency's psych department had re-imposed itself on Mac in the form of mandatory meetings with Patricia, but as far as she knew Mac had neither been invited nor required to keep getting regular medical treatment from the Agency's doctors.

"Mac, who prescribed these inhalers for you?" Dr. Germain asked.

"It was a walk-in clinic," Mac said in his half-whisper, before Vic or Li Ann could manage to jump in with anything helpful. "I don't remember the name. I just told them what they gave me in Hong Kong."

Dr. Germain frowned. "So you don't actually have a doctor following you here in Toronto, other than the psychiatrist?"

"Nah," Mac said. "It's been fine up till now."

"Mac, you have severe lung damage," Dr. Germain said. "You need to to be under the supervision of at _least_ a family doctor, who ideally would coordinate your care with specialists. Look, I have a clinical practice and I have room in my patient load right now. If you want, when you get out of here you could start seeing me. If you'd rather look for another doctor, that's fine—but you need to be seeing _somebody_."

"That would be great," Vic jumped in before Mac could say anything. "I'll take your card."


	19. Chapter 19

Friday night passed quietly. Li Ann and Vic took turns sleeping on the uncomfortable little couch, and sitting up with Mac.

Around three in the morning, during Li Ann's turn in the bedside chair, Mac woke up briefly.

Li Ann had been reading a book—a trashy spy-thriller paperback that Geneviève had brought in the care package for Vic, it was the only thing available in the room to divert her mind. She put it down, not even bothering to mark her place, and took Mac's hand. "Hi," she said softly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said.

She gave _that_ the skeptical eyebrow it deserved.

"Apart from the invisible sumo wrestler kneeling on my chest," Mac amended, ruefully. "Fuck, Li Ann, this sucks."

"I know, sweetie," she said. She reached for the side of his face with her free hand—his hair wasn't quite long enough to need to be brushed away from his eyes, but just at the side it was close, and the curls were stuck damply to his temple. "No nightmares this time, though?"

He frowned. "I think there was something. But it's fading now."

"That's good," she said. "That it's fading, I mean. Mac, I really think the new drugs are helping you."

"I can't believe Patricia gave me a fucking _anti-psychotic_ ," Mac half-moaned. " _I'm_ not the one who tried to strangle her in the treatment room."

"Well, we don't know what she's given Paul," Li Ann pointed out. "Anyway, Dr. Germain seemed to think that the anti-psychotic was a reasonable treatment for the flashbacks. And—you haven't actually had any episodes today, have you?"

"I don't remember very much about today," Mac said.

"You were usually a little disoriented and scared when you woke up," Li Ann told him. "You thought Michael was around, sometimes. But you never got lost in it—Vic and I were able to calm you down pretty much right away, every time. Even for a normal night that would be good, never mind when you're sick and running a fever."

Mac looked at her a little quizzically. "You think so?"

"Oh my god Mac, yes." Li Ann rubbed his hand, gently. "And I'm really glad. You have enough to deal with right now."

"Okay," he said, closing his eyes. "Write Patricia a thank-you note, then. Use a fountain pen, it's fancier."

She wasn't quite sure whether he was being sarcastic or just fading away again and rambling. His eyes stayed closed and he didn't say anything else.

She thought about it, though. Wondered.

After all the work that Mac had put in, with the meditation practice and the therapy and the nightly visualization exercises—after all the work that _Vic_ had put in, making sure that Mac would always feel safe and loved and protected—it turned out that what finally banished the flashbacks was a new set of pills.

Well, maybe it wasn't that simple. Maybe the pills wouldn't have helped as much if Mac didn't have all those other supports as well.

And maybe Li Ann was getting ahead of herself with the hope that the flashbacks were done. True, he'd made it through today without one, even though pain and illness were usually pretty bad triggers—but he was barely even managing to stay awake for a few minutes at a time. The way the flashbacks usually hit him was actually quite physically gruelling, and maybe his body just _couldn't_ put him through that right now.

They were draining to accompany him through, too. Not that Li Ann would ever, _ever_ voice that complaint out loud, to Mac _or_ to Vic. But she was grateful that Vic was so steady, so thoroughly committed to always being there for Mac. Because Li Ann, in all honesty, needed a break sometimes.

She still remembered the first time she'd spent the night with Mac and experienced one of his nightmare-triggered flashbacks. She'd surprised herself with her own strength, managing to hold him and comfort him and stay present, and not flee or shut down herself. Based on some things he'd shouted when he first woke up, Li Ann had known that he was reliving some kind of sexual assault. She'd assumed, through that long half hour before he finally came back to himself, that the memory dated to his time living homeless in Hong Kong. She'd made the painful guess that, despite his claims to the contrary, he'd resorted to prostitution to survive.

When he finally recovered and was able to talk to her, and he told her that the dream had been about Michael, she'd been _differently_ horrified—but also, in a terrible way, relieved. Because she wouldn't have to see the _specifics_ of her own darkest memories reflected back to her in Mac's curled-up, keening pain.

Looking after Li Jing had been tough in ways that Li Ann really hadn't anticipated.

Unlike Mac, Li Ann didn't have frequent, intrusive recollections of her past traumas. The brothel was a part of her history and it's not like she ever _forgot_ it, but she could go weeks or even months sometimes without particularly thinking about it.

She'd allowed herself to think that this meant that her past didn't matter. That she had enough distance now, that it was only a memory and not an open wound.

The intensity of her nightmare the first night that Li Jing had stayed with her had been an unpleasant shock.

Now that Li Jing was safely away, Li Ann could admit to herself that she had been identifying with her more strongly than was perhaps healthy or justified.

And that probably explained why Li Ann had been so motivated to find a safe new home for Li Jing, rather than letting her get sent back to Hong Kong. But Li Ann didn't think that that had been a mistake. She had a really good feeling about Meredith.

When she'd talked to Mac about her nightmare about the brothel and asked for his advice about the 're-scripting' technique, she'd expressed the feeling that it was useless to try to re-write the past; the past had happened the way it happened, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

But now she realized that there was more than one way to re-write the past. By protecting Li Jing, Li Ann had also been protecting the ghost of her own past self that she'd projected onto her.

Thinking about it that way, Li Ann felt more sure than ever that she'd made the right choice when she'd stayed with the Agency. It was a flawed and problematical organization—Mac would never let her forget about that—but it gave her the power to protect people. And from that power flowed her strength and self-assurance.

She looked down at Mac, who had definitely fallen back asleep. She needed to protect him _with_ the power of the Agency, and also protect him _from_ the power of the Agency. It was never going to be simple. But she would manage, somehow.

* * *

The Director appeared around noon the next day.

Mac was awake; a nurse had just been around to change his bandages. Vic and Li Ann had kept him distracted throughout the procedure with an animated, joking conversation about the metaphysics of _The Little Mermaid_ 's universe. ("How does she _sing_ underwater?" Vic had protested. "That's what bothers you the most?" Li Ann had retorted. "Not the fact that Ariel gives up her _voice_ so that she can attract the attention of a man she barely knows?")

The Director was dressed conservatively, a black wool coat over a charcoal-grey suit. She was carrying a leather folio case, and a small cardboard box. "Hello, all," she said. "I've brought some good news, and also a present."

Mac's eyes widened. "Not leeches," he said. "Please, not leeches again."

Vic, who was in the chair by the bed, gave Mac a sharp, puzzled look. " _Leeches_?"

But the Director just shook her head, with a bit of a smirk. "No, the present is for Li Ann."

Li Ann stood up from the couch and warily approached the Director. She accepted the box.

"Careful, keep it upright," the Director said.

The top of the box was just folded shut. Li Ann opened it and peered inside. It was a small potted cactus.

"Um, thanks?" Li Ann said.

The Director smiled broadly. "Baby steps."

"So what's the good news?" Vic asked.

"Ah, yes. Paul managed to obtain the name and phone number of the gang's Hong Kong contact—the man who plucked Li Jing off the street. I passed the information on to the Hong Kong police, and I had a report this morning that he'd been taken into custody. So—one nascent human trafficking operation, kaput. Good work, everybody."

Mac looked pleased. Li Ann also felt quite relieved at the news.

"And I brought the records you asked for," the Director added, opening up her folio case and extracting an overstuffed manila folder. She handed it to Li Ann.

Mac's medical records. Li Ann nodded her thanks, and placed it on the bedside table.

"How are you doing, Mac?" the Director asked then.

"Fine," Mac said, a bit defensively. "I haven't spilled any state secrets, don't worry."

"Well, good," the Director said. "But that's not what I meant."

"We're all a little on edge," Li Ann said, "since last week Patricia basically threatened to lock him up in the Agency if he had another breakdown in front of witnesses."

"Ah." The Director pressed her lips together, frowning thoughtfully. "Sorry. Patricia can come on a little strong, sometimes. She has her own directives to follow, but I can overturn her judgments if necessary. Mac, I promise that I would never allow you to be held long-term in an Agency facility against your will."

Li Ann immediately noticed the disturbing amount of wiggle-room in that statement. From the expression on his face, so did Mac.

"We won't hold him against his will at the Agency, _period_ ," Li Ann said, giving the Director a hard look.

The Director shrugged loosely. "I hate to rule out any tools we might need in a crisis."

"You handed _me_ full authority over Mac's file," Li Ann reminded the Director.

The Director raised an eyebrow, seemed to consider for a moment, and then nodded. "So I did. All right. In fact I do have faith that the three of you can manage the situation with adequate discretion—you always have so far. And I didn't come here to threaten or confront you. Mac, when I asked how you were doing, I was simply attempting to express friendly care and concern. You know, like people do."

Vic snorted, clearly suppressing a surprised laugh.

"Like _people_ do," Mac repeated faintly, looking bemused. "Um, thanks. I guess."

The Director crossed in front of Li Ann and seated herself at the foot of Mac's bed. Li Ann tensed, unsure if this was a boundary-crossing that she should do something about. Mac watched the Director warily, and Vic frowned cautiously at her and took Mac's hand.

"The three of you were my favourites," the Director said.

Mac and Vic's guarded-but-puzzled expressions matched Li Ann's own internal reaction, but she kept her face smooth.

"I've been a Director at the Agency for—oh, let's not say how long. I've been responsible for hundreds of agents. More than a dozen core teams operating at your level, over the years. One or two of them, perhaps, had a level of skill and effectiveness on par with yours. But I never _liked_ any of them nearly as much as I liked the three of you."

"You tried to _shoot_ me once," Mac said, staring at her. "In the briefing room."

The Director gave a little sigh, and patted his blanket-covered foot. "Oh, Mac. My problem child. _You_ got under my skin. You shone so brightly but you were always on the verge of breathtakingly dramatic self-destruction. I was never sure how to handle you. I tried giving you space, I tried firm discipline, and one way or another you always found chaos. It would have been easy to say that you were the weak link on the team, but in fact you were essential to its functioning."

"What's the point you're trying to make?" Mac asked. "I'm sorry I couldn't work for you anymore. I mean, I'm _not_ sorry. You blackmailed me into working for you and treated me like crap. But I'm sorry I can't help you fight crime anymore."

"Well, you _did_ help with this last case," the Director observed. "And I'm certainly not trying to make you feel guilty for your inactive status. I'm trying ... oh, Lord, I think I'm trying to express _regret_."

Mac and Vic stared at her. So did Li Ann.

The Director sighed again. "I _liked_ you," she said, "the _three_ of you, because of your fundamental kindness, generosity and _goodness_. Those weren't qualities I ever expected to find in a team of agents, given how we recruit. I realized that Vic might be an exception part-way through his training period when I uncovered the fact that he'd been wrongfully convicted. I _didn't_ expect to find the same virtues in Li Ann and Mac, given their extensive criminal backgrounds. But there you were—three sweet, gentle people, despite your histories and your skills."

"We don't have to recruit the way that we do," Li Ann pointed out. "We choose to. We could change that."

The Director looked wry. "There's a reason that we operate as we do. I appreciated your collective goodness on a personal level, but it wasn't, strictly speaking, an asset in the field. You challenged me. You disobeyed my orders if you thought they were wrong. You _repeatedly_ disrupted operations by saving people who I hadn't asked you to save."

Vic was looking increasingly uncomfortable—Li Ann could see the tightness in his jaw. For a moment she wasn't sure exactly what about the Director's unexpected speech would hit him that way—but then she remembered the Chinese commando. The time that Vic _hadn't_ disobeyed an order that he thought was wrong.

She caught Mac's eye—Mac had also just been looking at Vic.

"So you liked us," Mac said to the Director, not warmly. "Big deal. What good did that ever do us?"

"Absolutely none," the Director agreed with a grimace. "That's where the regrets come in. I'm sorry, Mac, that you were so badly hurt."

"Oh." Mac looked discomfited. "It's okay, though. Everything turned out okay in the end." He looked at Vic as he said it, and then Li Ann, and then finally towards the bedside table where the family photos were displayed.

"I'm glad that you think so," the Director said gently. "And I hope that you feel better soon."

* * *

Mac slept again after the Director left. Vic and Li Ann didn't discuss what she'd said; Vic read his book, and Li Ann went down to the hospital's gift shop to find some reading material more in line with her own tastes.

They woke Mac up when Ben arrived about an hour later to do the power-of-attorney paperwork.

"Hi Mac," Ben said, settling into the bedside seat which Vic had just vacated for him. "Mom and Casey send their love. They wanted to come, but I told them you weren't up for a lot of visitors yet." He looked over at Li Ann and Vic. "I thought—well, I wasn't sure whether you might need to talk about things that you can't say in front of them." 

"Thanks," Vic said. "We appreciate your caution. It'd be okay for them to visit another time, though. Our lives aren't nearly as full of secrets as they used to be."

Ben, meanwhile, was frowning slightly. "Vic said you had pneumonia," he mentioned to Mac. "Why is your arm in a sling?"

"Michael's grieving lover tried to kill me again," Mac said. "He's a secret agent now, and the Director sent him to my gym to investigate a human trafficking case."

"Probably for the best that Rebekah and Casey didn't come along," Li Ann murmured, catching Vic's look.

"I wouldn't have said all that if they'd been here," Mac said, rolling his eyes.

"Sorry, Michael's lover?" Ben repeated. "Tried to kill you _again_?"

"We'll tell you the whole story some other time," Vic said quickly. "Mac doesn't have a lot of energy right now—let's get the papers signed."

* * *

Later in the afternoon, Dr. Germain stopped in again.

"Here," Li Ann said, handing her the folder. "His medical records."

"Oh," Dr. Germain said, looking a little surprised. "Good. Thanks." She opened the folder and started skimming the papers. Her eyebrows immediately went up. "Why are all of these pages marked 'declassified'?"

Li Ann shared a quick, uncomfortable glance with Vic. "Uh, we actually can't tell you that," Vic said. "It's ... classified."

Dr. Germain didn't look up from the papers. She was frowning now. "Is this a _joke_?" she said, sounding annoyed. She held up a page—half of the writing on it was obscured by thick black sharpie. "These pages have been _censored_."

"Not a joke," Li Ann assured her mildly.

Dr. Germain stared at her for a moment, and then brought the folder over to the vinyl couch and sat down. "Give me a minute to look this over," she said. "Maybe wake Mac up—I'll need him soon."

Vic gently shook Mac awake. Li Ann, standing by the side of the bed, rolled her shoulders and watched Dr. Germain cautiously.

The Director had handed Li Ann the folder and hadn't asked her to take any kind of precautions. There couldn't be anything in there that Dr. Germain wasn't allowed to see.

Dr. Germain frowned again and looked up. "You should have mentioned the previous cardiac arrests at intake. That's not something they'd think to check for in a 27-year-old presenting with pneumonia."

Vic looked up. "Wait, cardiac arrests? Plural? It only happened once, the last time he was sick."

Li Ann shook her head. "You're forgetting the poison, a year before that."

Dr. Germain blinked. "I'm looking at October during the previous bout of pneumonia, and the overdose three years ago. I don't see anything about poison ... oh, wait, is it this page?" She held up a sheet on which literally every line had been covered with black sharpie.

"Er..." Li Ann said.

"Hang on," Dr. Germain said. She stood up, pushed the little vinyl couch aside, pulled up the blinds, and pressed the censored page directly against the windowpane. Then she squinted at the paper, which glowed in the sunlight. "There we are," she said under her breath, with apparent satisfaction. "Now I can read it."

"Um, I'm not sure you should be—" Li Ann started.

Vic quelled her with a hand on her arm. "She's his _doctor_. She needs to know his health information. His full, accurate, _complete_ health information."

"What the hell?" Dr. Germain said, peering closely at the paper. "I've never even heard of this chemical." She kept reading. "Shit. 'Government Advisory Council'? I thought that was just a nut-job conspiracy theory."

"Right," Vic said, a little uncomfortably now. "You should definitely keep thinking that."

"Just read the medical details," Li Ann advised her levelly. "Ignore the rest."

Dr. Germain lowered the paper and put it back in the folder. She adjusted her glasses, and frowned at the three of them. "Excuse me," she said. "I find that I'm in the process of revising several of the inferences that I drew yesterday. And some very uncomfortable questions are occurring to me. Such as: should there be an armed guard on this room?"

"Whatever Mac might previously have been—" Li Ann said carefully, "which we _definitely_ can't be specific about—it's in the past."

That was true, as far as it went.

What she didn't mention was that she _was_ the armed guard in this room.

"His heart," Vic interjected. "Is there a problem?"

"Not necessarily," Dr. Germain said. "Considering the history, I'm going to monitor him a little more closely. Once he's discharged, I'll refer him to a specialist. It doesn't look like any sort of detailed examination was done after the overdose _or_ the poisoning, and the records of his treatment immediately after the fire seem to be missing. Do you know what level of carbon monoxide poisoning he had?"

Vic winced. "There was no medical treatment immediately after the fire."

Dr. Germain stared at Mac for a moment. Mac shrugged.

"Okay," she said finally. "When we finish here I'm going to tell the duty nurse to bring in a heart monitor. It shouldn't cause you any extra discomfort. It only beeps if there's a problem, not constantly."

Vic gave Mac a worried look. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier," he said. "I didn't think about it."

"It's okay," Dr. Germain said. "Nothing happened."

Vic ran his free hand through his hair, looking increasingly distressed. "It never even occurred to me that he might have _heart_ problems."

Mac gave Vic a reassuring smile. "Don't freak out man," he said quietly. "I'm pretty sure my heart is fine. Sure, those things happened, but I've never had problems with my _heart_ when I'm working out."

Vic looked up sharply at the doctor. "Shit, is it even _safe_ for him to work out?"

"What sort of workouts are we talking about?" she asked.

"Weights and cardio," Mac said. "About an hour a day."

"Hm," Dr. Germain said. "When you're exercising, do you ever experience chest pain? Shortness of breath? Dizziness or lightheadedness?"

"Uh, yeah," Mac said. "My _lungs_ are totally fucked."

"Right." Dr. Germain seemed to gather her thoughts. "Once you get out of here, you'll need to be cautious while you get back into your routine. Don't push yourself—try to stick to about 50% of what feels like your maximum effort level, and give yourself time to regain strength. Don't go all-out at _all_ until you've consulted with the specialist. But I certainly advise you to continue exercising. Your base blood oxygen levels are about 40% better than I'd expect from looking at the chest x-rays, and that's almost certainly due to your fitness level."

Mac looked up at Vic, and squeezed his hand. "See?" he said. "It's okay. Exercising helps."

* * *

Vic waited until Mac was definitely asleep again—extra leads trailing from his chest to a heart monitor now—before he covered his face with his hands and groaned softly, "Fuck, fuck, fucking _fuck_."

Li Ann looked up from her book and decided Vic needed a hug. She went around the bed and stood next to the chair, and put her arms around his shoulders.

"It's not a _new_ problem," she pointed out. "It's just one that you hadn't thought about before."

"I should have, though," Vic said. "I never even connected the cardiac arrest in Sudbury with the one the year before."

"I did," Li Ann confessed. "I just didn't think to say anything about it. I'm sorry, I really should have. But I still don't think there's necessarily much to worry about. He was so much sicker in October, and then he panicked and went running down the hall and fighting people. Nothing like that is going to happen this time. Not with us here looking out for him."

"Yeah," Vic said, and leaned his head against her belly. "Li Ann ... I'm so glad you're here. I think I'd go crazy, trying to deal with all this on my own."

"I'm glad that you're here, too," Li Ann said, scritching a hand through his short hair. "I think we were always meant to be three, weren't we? I can't imagine any two of us making it on our own."


	20. Chapter 20

A sudden, frantic, high-pitched beeping woke Li Ann from a deep sleep in the middle of the night.

She scrambled to her feet—stumbling a little in the process of unfolding herself from the truly uncomfortable position she'd been sleeping in—and had her gun in her hand before she quite managed to remember where she was.

Vic gave her a frantic, wide-eyed quelling gesture. "Li Ann, stow it!" he whisper-shouted.

She reacted instantly to Vic's instructions, shoving her gun back into its holster under her blazer. So when the nurse came through the door about two seconds later, Li Ann was simply standing in front of the vinyl couch, looking maybe a little sleep-bedraggled and startled but not showing any sign of having recently been pointing a firearm at that same door.

Whew. "Thanks," she mouthed at Vic.

He just gave her a tight nod, as he stood aside to give the nurse access to the bed. Mac's eyes were open too, and he looked confused.

"What's going on?" Vic asked.

"The heart monitor triggered an alarm," the nurse said, shutting it off. "His heart-rate increased suddenly." She turned to Mac. "Are you feeling dizzy or nauseous?"

Mac shook his head. "Just a bad dream."

The nurse checked a couple things, seemed satisfied that Mac wasn't in immediate danger, and left, telling Mac that a resident would see him soon.

"Sorry about the gun," Li Ann whispered after the door closed.

Vic shrugged. "I understand the instinct."

Then a raccoon-eyed on-call resident came in. He listened to Mac's chest with a stethoscope, frowning. "The nurse said you reported a bad dream?"

"He has PTSD," Vic said. "Night terrors."

"That could set off the monitor, yeah," the resident said.

And then he started _asking_ about the PTSD.

Vic and Li Ann exchanged anxious looks. Mac still seemed a bit abstracted and disoriented, although at least he didn't seem to be going into a flashback. Once again, Li Ann inferred that the new medication was helping.

After Vic jumped in and answered three questions in a row that had been directed at Mac, the resident asked him to wait out in the hall.

"But—" Vic started.

"It'll be okay," Li Ann said quickly, to forestall a possible confrontation. "Vic, I'm still here."

Vic had forgotten his lessons from Reshmi's therapy lessons, apparently, about not talking for Mac. Well, it was understandable. He was under a lot of stress.

So Vic went out into the hall, and Li Ann took his place by Mac's side. Squeezed Mac's hand reassuringly. And trusted him to answer the questions.

"Do you often have night terrors?" the resident asked.

"Yes," Mac said.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Since I was a kid."

"And do you experience other symptoms such as flashbacks or intrusive thoughts about a disturbing event?" The resident sounded like he was quoting from a remembered textbook.

"Yes," Mac said patiently.

"Do others sometimes describe your behaviour as irritable or aggressive, or reckless or self-destructive?"

"Mostly the last two," Mac said. Li Ann gave him a hand-squeeze.

"Do you experience hypervigilance or exaggerated startle response?"

"No, but Li Ann does," Mac said, and subtly made a pistol shape with the fingers of the hand that was dangling from the sling.

Li Ann gave him a quick glare, and glanced back at the resident. "He _has_ a diagnosis," she pointed out, because it was starting to sound like the resident was trying to assess Mac from scratch. "He's under the care of a psychiatrist. His medications are there on the table."

"Uh huh," the resident said, and suppressed a yawn. "Have you been having thoughts about self-harm, or about suicide?"

" _No_ ," Mac said emphatically. "Why does everybody keep asking me that?"

"Okay," the resident said, apparently at the end of his list. "I'll adjust the heart monitor to be a little less sensitive. That should cut down on the false alarms."

"Is that safe?" Li Ann asked, warily.

"Sure," the resident said, pressing a button on the monitor. "The default setting is very conservative. This will still pick up any real problems."

The resident left, and Vic came back in. "Everything okay?" he asked, with an anxious look at Mac.

"Everything's fine," Mac said.

"You did really well," Li Ann added.

Mac rolled his eyes at her. "I sat in a hospital bed and answered yes-or-no questions. It wasn't exactly the Iditarod."

"A year ago you couldn't have done it," Li Ann said.

Mac shrugged. "I guess."

Li Ann patted his hand. "Some things get harder. Some things get easier."

He managed a faint smile. " _That's_ for sure."

* * *

Sunday morning, Mac's fever was down and he got switched from the oxygen mask to nasal cannula so that he could eat solid food. He had a mid-morning nap, but was awake the rest of the time. He optimistically reported that he was finding it much easier to breathe.

In the afternoon, he had visitors.

Ben came back first, with Casey and Rebekah. They'd brought a bouquet of cut yellow daisies and red carnations, 'to brighten up the place.'

They kept their visit courteously short, so as not to tire Mac out. Mac seemed very much cheered by the whole experience.

"We have _friends_ ," he pointed out to Li Ann and Vic after the three had left. "Isn't that great?"

Vic smiled. "It really is. Hey, were you serious about planning another show with Ben?"

Mac had floated the idea during the visit, and Ben had seemed open to it.

"It was Li Ann's idea," Mac said. "She thinks it'll help keep me out of trouble."

"That's ... a tall order," Vic said, looking doubtful.

Li Ann couldn't help laughing at that. Both guys looked at her, frowning.

"Come on," she said. "It's funny because it's _true_."

* * *

The next set of visitors was not so welcome.

When Paul walked through the door of Mac's hospital room, Li Ann was on her feet and pointing her gun before he'd taken a second step inside.

"Stop right there," she snapped at him.

He held his hands up and stepped carefully sideways—to his right, taking him further away from Mac, opening the way for Jackie to follow him through the door.

"Nice reflexes, Tsei," he said in Cantonese. "I wouldn't have been able to get to him if I'd tried."

"English, please," Vic said tightly, standing up and keeping himself very much between Mac and Paul.

"Just, like, _relax_ everybody," Jackie said. The door snicked shut behind her. Hopefully nobody out in the hallway had seen the gun in the meantime, but frankly that wasn't Li Ann's first priority right now. "I'm here to hold his leash."

"I only see a collar," Mac said.

In fact, Paul _was_ wearing something around his neck that looked very much like a dog collar, mostly hidden by the upturned collar of his winter coat.

Jackie grinned. "Yeah, but check this out." Holding up her hand, she thumbed a small device tucked into her left palm.

Paul's hands flew to his neck and he flinched, swearing.

"Is that a fucking _shock_ collar?" Vic asked, looking about as disturbed as Li Ann felt.

"Yeah," Jackie said. "Isn't it great?"

"Oh my god," Li Ann murmured. But she didn't lower her gun.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Mac asked Paul.

"Patricia sent me," Paul said, speaking English this time and clipping his words irritably. "To apologize."

Mac looked skeptical. "Really?"

"For stabbing you," Paul said.

" _Just_ for the stabbing?" Vic murmured.

Paul glared at him.

Li Ann could see the logic. "He wasn't working for the Agency yet when he tried to kill us before," she pointed out.

"Okay," Mac said. "Go ahead then."

Paul clenched his jaw and just stood there for a moment. Jackie lifted her left hand, and gave him a significant look.

"Sorry," he said. "For stabbing you."

"Sure," Mac said. "Water under the bridge." He looked at Li Ann. "Put the gun away."

Li Ann had reservations, but she did as Mac had asked.

"Was the collar Patricia's idea?" Mac asked Paul, in Cantonese.

Vic looked unhappy. "Jesus Mac, what did I just say about sticking with English?"

"Paul and I have a few things to talk about," Mac said. "Semi-privately." He glanced pointedly over at Jackie.

"I don't think we do," Paul said.

"I don't like you," Mac said to him, in Cantonese again. "You keep trying to kill me. You plotted with Michael to fuck with my head and _then_ kill me. But right now I think you're in a worse place than I am."

Paul wrinkled his nose. "You're half dead in a hospital bed."

Mac gave a slight shrug. "Gonna be out of here soon. Can't say the same for you." He touched his neck, in the place where a collar would be. "You didn't answer my question. Was it Patricia? The Director? Or Dobrinsky? My money's on Dobrinsky. He always thought electrocution was pretty funny."

Li Ann gave Mac a sharp look, and filed that one away for a later conversation.

"What's it to you?" Paul asked.

"Does it bother you?" Mac asked, instead of answering. "That you're never been anything but my replacement?"

Paul looked at him for a moment. His fingers twitched half into a fist, but then he glanced over at Jackie and relaxed his hand. "No," he said finally. "Your apartment has a great view of the water."

"Here's the thing," Mac said. "You keep stepping into places where I was, and those places _suck_."

"Mac, where are you going with this?" Li Ann asked quietly, a little concerned.

"I'm not sure," he said, but he didn't lower his voice—Paul was meant to hear him too. "We told Patricia that Michael used to choke me, and next thing we know Paul shows up in an obedience collar. What do _you_ think that means?"

"I don't know," Li Ann confessed.

Paul sneered. "Michael was obsessed with you. I don't know why. I could have been everything he needed. Fuck you."

"Paul. Man. Michael _was_ obsessed with me, and it got him killed. That's not my fault," Mac said. "I was a kid when we got together. He liked having power over me. He ... Paul, I don't know what he was like with you. But he fucked me up. I thought I loved him, I wanted to be with him, but he raped me anyway."

Mac was watching Paul pretty intensely as he spoke, but he seemed calm. Li Ann was fairly shocked, though, to hear Mac just _saying_ that. He never had before, as far as she could remember. She moved closer to the bed, instinctively.

"What's going on?" Vic whispered to her, maybe noticing her expression.

"I'll have to tell you later," she whispered back. "Stay on guard, I don't know how this is going to go."

Paul was scowling. "I wanted everything that Michael did to me. He should have just forgotten about you, Ramsey."

"He should have," Mac agreed easily. "We'd all be in much happier places now if he had. But Michael was who he was. Maybe that's why he was never satisfied with you as a substitute for me. Because you wanted it; he could never _really_ hurt you."

Paul gritted his teeth. "Are you trying to talk me into finishing the job, Ramsey? The fucking collar isn't _that_ strong. I could snap your neck before I pass out."

"But not before I shoot you," Li Ann assured him coldly, hiding her alarm behind a smooth face.

"I'm trying to convince you to _stop_ trying to kill me," Mac said. "It's not worth it. It won't bring Michael back and it won't make him love you the way you wanted him to. And, I repeat—it's not my fucking fault he's dead. It's _his_."

Paul made a face, and touched his throat. "I know," he said, grudgingly.

"Okay, good, now we're making progress," Mac said. "So about that collar. The Agency is a fucked-up place. You might not survive it. I barely did. But the next time somebody does something like _that_ to you—putting a fucking shock collar on you, or handcuffing you under a desk for twenty-four hours, or coming into your apartment at night and sexually intimidating you, or I don't know, whatever they come up with next—you go to Li Ann."

Li Ann twitched. "What?"

Mac didn't look at her—he kept looking intensely at Paul. "Li Ann has power there now. Not as much as the Director, but the Director listens to her. Li Ann will protect you, if you go to her."

Li Ann stared at him for a moment, but then she nodded.

She had no idea what had made Mac's thoughts run in this direction. But once he'd put it that way, she could hardly refuse.

She _had_ promised to start working to mitigate the Agency's abuses. And Mac had faith in her.

"Li Ann's going to take the collar off you now," Mac said then, in English.

"She is?" Vic said, looking startled.

"No she's not," Jackie said, cracking her gum.

"Yes, I am," Li Ann said, with a look at Mac's trusting expression and Paul's wary one.

"But seriously, no," Jackie said. "The Director put me in charge of keeping him in line."

"We've had a nice talk," Mac said. "He's not going to hurt anybody now. Are you Paul?"

Paul held up his hands, fingers spread. He was wearing black leather winter gloves. "No," he said.

"I want you to _promise_ ," Li Ann said. "Explicitly."

Paul's nostrils flared. Li Ann had no idea what was going on in his head. But he said, "I promise I won't hurt any of you."

"That's good enough for me," Li Ann said, evenly. She really wasn't sure about this, but Mac was pushing for it, and she trusted him. "Jackie, I'll take responsibility with the Director."

Jackie shrugged, conceding. "If he goes postal, _you're_ doing the cleanup," she warned.

Paul touched the collar. "There's a lock."

"Jackie, do you have the key?" Li Ann asked.

"Not here," Jackie said.

Li Ann caught Mac's eye, and couldn't help smirking. "No problem," she said. "I've got a lock pick."

She hesitated before going over to Paul, though. Just in case ... she pulled the gun out of her holster again, and handed it to Mac. "Cover me," she said.

"I'm not feeling the trust, Tsei," Paul murmured.

"Hold still," she said. "Apologies in advance if I accidentally shock you."

Mac was just holding the gun loosely on his lap, not pointing it. That was all right. The main thing was, she hadn't wanted to give Paul the opportunity to grab it while she had her hands occupied removing the collar.

And she'd given it to Mac, not Vic, because she knew that if anything happened Mac _would_ cover her.

Vic was frowning at the gun, but didn't offer to take it. Jackie and Paul didn't say anything about the oddness of Li Ann's choice of backup. Li Ann wasn't sure if Jackie knew precisely why Vic had been retired. She hoped she didn't. It was better if Vic at least maintained the ability to _bluff_ that he was still a threat.

The collar snapped open. "There you go," Li Ann said, and pocketed it. She held out a hand to Jackie. "Give me the remote."

Jackie chuckled and handed it over. "Gonna try it out on your boys, later? All power to you, girl."

Li Ann didn't dignify that with a response.

Jackie and Paul took their leave. Li Ann reclaimed her gun. And Vic noisily let out a breath that Li Ann hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"What the _fuck_ just happened here?" he asked. "What did I miss?"

"Mac, are you okay?" Li Ann asked first instead of answering.

"Yeah," Mac said—sounding a little surprised. "Exhausted, though. Fuck."

"You should rest," Li Ann said.

But Mac didn't close his eyes while she summarized for Vic what all had been said in Cantonese.

"Mac," Vic said, looking pained, "Did you get handcuffed under a desk for a day? Was that a thing that happened?"

"Only once," Mac said. "It was usually just a few hours."

"You couldn't get yourself free?" Li Ann asked, mildly.

"Oh, sure, then Dobrinsky would've been _really_ happy with me."

"How did we not know this?" Vic asked helplessly, looking at Li Ann.

"I don't know," Mac said, sounding slightly annoyed. "You always saw Dobrinsky dragging me off to punish me. You never wondered what he _did_?"

"I thought he made you wash his cars," Vic mentioned.

"Yeah, that too," Mac said.

"And he _electrocuted_ you?" Li Ann said.

"Well, tased."

Li Ann swore under her breath, but Vic looked a little uncomfortable and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Actually, I knew about that one," Vic said.

Li Ann stared at him. "You did?"

"Back when I didn't like Mac, it seemed ... funnier."

"I can't believe this," Li Ann said. "Dobrinsky's never done anything like that to me."

"Or to me," Vic added.

"Yeah, because you two were _good_ ," Mac pointed out. "I got on the Director's bad side all the time."

Vic looked at Li Ann. "Can we _do_ something about this?"

"Vic, it's over," Mac said. "I'm out, remember? But Paul's not. And it looks like he _is_ the new me."

"He stabbed you," Vic said. "If this wasn't all wrapped up in Agency stuff, he would've gone to jail for assault."

"But it is all wrapped up in Agency stuff," Mac said. "We're not normal people. I mean, maybe you are. Sort of. But Li Ann and I never were, and my guess is, neither was Paul. And I think Michael was just as rough with him as he was with me."

"What does that even have to do with anything?" Vic asked.

"I think I get it," Li Ann said. She touched Mac's cheek, lightly. "You have to save Paul," she said. "Just like I had to save Li Jing."

* * *

Mac slept again after that. Vic and Li Ann talked about what they'd learned.

"Why do I keep forgetting to believe him?" Vic asked. "He always said Dobrinsky was a sadist who hated him."

"I don't think it's that," Li Ann said. "Dobrinsky just does what the Director asks him to. She's talked to me before, about the difficulty of keeping agents in line. She used tactics with Mac that she didn't use with us. But that's all it was. Tactics."

"It's _abusive_ ," Vic said.

"You weren't as bothered about it happening to Paul," Li Ann pointed out.

Vic grimaced. "Paul's dangerous. And he's a loose cannon."

"You weren't bothered by Mac getting _tased_ , apparently," Li Ann reminded him.

"I was an asshole," Vic admitted, wincing. "Before I got to know him better, I was an asshole."

"Maybe, but he was an asshole to you, too," Li Ann said, reassuringly. "And I know he doesn't hold it against you now. But look, my point is—it's not about _anybody_ being an asshole, not you or Dobrinsky or the Director or Mac. The abuse is built in. It's structural."

"You're saying that the problem is the Agency itself?"

Li Ann nodded. "And I really don't know what to do about it. I think that the Director is fundamentally right—the ends justify the means. The work the Agency does is crucial for the safety of millions of innocent people. And I don't know if it _could_ be a kinder, gentler place and still get the job done."

"Well," said Vic, "if you're really going to try to soften the Agency experience for Paul—I guess that's an experiment, huh? You'll find out if it makes him a better agent, or a worse one."

"That doesn't necessarily make the Agency a better place," Li Ann pointed out. "It just makes me the good cop to Dobrinsky's bad cop."

Vic shrugged. "The world could always use a few more good cops."

* * *

Their next visitor, an hour later, was also unexpected—at least to Li Ann.

It was an Asian man, mid-forties maybe, slightly heavyset and standing about as tall as Li Ann. He was holding a shiny silver 'Get Well Soon!' balloon.

"Hi Mike," Vic said.

"Hi," the man said. And then he hesitated, apparently noticing that Mac was asleep. "Sorry, is this a bad time?"

"No, he's doing a lot better today," Vic said. "He's just napping on and off. He'll be happy to see you."

"Jada will be here in a few minutes," Mike said. "She dropped me off and went to park the car. I'd like her to meet Mac." He lowered his voice a little, as though speaking confidentially to Vic, but Li Ann could still hear him. "She's a little iffy about me seeing him anymore, since she found out about the, um, historical stuff."

"Li Ann knows about all that," Vic mentioned, glancing back at her. "We can talk about it openly. Thanks for being careful, though, that's really important."

"Of course, right, you're Li Ann," Mike said to her. He stepped closer to her and held out his hand. "Mac's told me all about you."

Li Ann stepped around the foot of the bed to accept Mike's handshake, and wondered exactly _what_ Mac had told this guy about her. Or about his own past, for that matter. But there was no discreet way to question Vic about it now, so she'd just have to follow Vic's lead carefully. "And you are...?"

"Mac's gym partner," Vic filled in from behind Mike. "The guy who helped get Li Jing out of the basement."

" _Oh_ ," Li Ann said, somewhat more enlightened. "That was very brave of you."

"I didn't really do anything," Mike said, looking slightly embarrassed. "It was really all Mac."

"Still," Li Ann said.

Vic, meanwhile, was gently shaking Mac's shoulder. "Hey Mac, Mike's here to see you."

Mac blinked awake calmly, and smiled. "Hey Mike. Here for a little sparring? You chose your moment well. I think you could take me today."

Mike laughed. "Honestly? I don't think I'll risk it. It'd be a little _too_ embarrassing if you beat me."

The door opened again, and they were joined by a slender black woman about the same age as Mike. Her hair was in a short, loose Afro, held back from her face with a black-and-yellow band, and she wore dark plum lipstick and amber teardrop earrings. She went immediately to Mike's side and took his hand with an absently comfortable gesture.

"Jada, this is Mac," Mike said. "Mac, Jada. And this is his partner Vic, and his ... friend Li Ann."

The hesitation before Mike identified her suggested to Li Ann that Mike knew more about her relationship with Mac than he'd chosen to say. But she didn't know _what_ he knew. Or thought he knew.

 _God_ , meeting people was always so complicated.

"Nice to meet you," Jada said mildly, shaking Vic's and Li Ann's hands in turn. Mac, she just granted a cordial nod.

"You too," Mac beamed at her. "Mike's told me so much about you and the girls."

" _Has_ he," Jada said, unenthusiastically.

"Why don't you have a seat," Mac invited, giving a little wave in the direction of the currently-unoccupied vinyl loveseat.

Mike and Jada accepted the invitation. Vic sat back down in the bedside chair and Li Ann, lacking any other options, tucked one knee up under herself and sat at the foot of Mac's bed.

"How are you doing?" Mike asked Mac.

"Oh, you know," Mac said vaguely. "Taking it easy, enjoying the food and the company. I should be out of here soon. Have you found a new gym for us yet?"

"Um, maybe..." Mike said, but with an uneasy glance sideways at his wife.

"I'm not entirely comfortable with Mike continuing to work out with you," Jada said, leaning forward with a serious frown. "I'm sorry, I don't mean any offence."

"You can be explicit," Vic said mildly. "Li Ann also knows about Mac's history with the triads."

Li Ann silently thanked Vic for clueing her in as to what Mike and Jada knew. She supposed Mac must've had to tell Mike something to explain his role in Li Jing's rescue. She would've appreciated a more thorough briefing on which cover-story version they were using here, but it was too late for that now.

"Well," Jada said, folding her hands on her knee, "then let's be explicit. I am uneasy with your criminal background. We have our daughters to think of."

"I have a daughter," Mac said. "She's nearly three."

"And I am _really_ uneasy with the fact that you got Mike involved in violent incidents twice in one week," Jada continued.

"Both _totally_ not my fault," Mac objected.

"Honey, he saved that little girl," Mike said.

"You should've just called the police," Jada said.

"She's got you there," Vic murmured, but Li Ann didn't think anyone other than Mac was supposed to hear him.

"That lady who came into the gym wasn't sure she'd really seen anything. We were going to check it out and _then_ call the police," Mike said. Li Ann got the distinct feeling that Mike and his wife had been having this argument all week.

"I would never let anything happen to Mike," Mac promised, looking at Jada with wide-eyed sincerity.

"Ah, what he _means_ is, there's nothing to worry about because Mac's former life is ancient history," Vic said. "He's just a nanny now. Living quietly."

"What about the step-brother?" Jada asked. "The one who stabbed you."

"That's all sorted out," Mac said. "He was just here an hour ago, to apologize. He's in therapy now. I think we really connected, actually."

"Paul visited you here?" Mike said, looking surprised.

"Yes," Li Ann confirmed mildly, trying to keep her eyebrow from twitching. _Step-brother?_

"Anyway, I'm not sure if Mac should go back to working out before he's seen the heart specialist," Vic said. "So it could be a while."

Mac frowned at him. "Uh, that is _not_ what the doctor advised."

"The doctor said it was _probably_ safe if you didn't push yourself," Vic reminded him. "But when have you ever not pushed yourself?"

"You have a heart problem?" Mike asked, looking concerned. "I thought you just had asthma."

"It's not really asthma," Mac said. "I was in a fire last summer. I got lung damage from it."

"He carried me down three flights of stairs to safety," Li Ann added, since she had promised that that could be part of the story. "My knee was hurt, I couldn't walk."

"Four flights," Mac said, not quite suppressing a smirk. "If we're counting."

"Wow," Mike said. "That sounds terrifying."

"But I don't have a heart problem."

"That's for the specialist to decide, isn't it?" Vic said, a little stubbornly.

"Every time my heart stopped, it was for a good reason," Mac said. "It's not like it just does it randomly."

"Okay, granted," Vic said. "But every time it happened, it potentially damaged you. We just _don't know_."

"Shit," Mike said, looking a little daunted. "I wish you'd told me this when we first started training. We could've been a lot more careful. Should you maybe be wearing a MedicAlert bracelet, or something?"

"Yes," Vic said, with an air of revelation. "He absolutely should be."

"What are you even talking about?" Mac asked.

Li Ann shrugged her ignorance.

Jada held up her left arm. She was wearing a loose steel chain-link bracelet with an oval-shaped metal tag in the middle. "I'm allergic to peanuts," she said. "You really haven't seen one of these before?"

"They didn't grow up in Canada," Vic pointed out.

"It just lists your key medical information, and a number to call for your complete file," Jada said. "It helps the first responders, if you're unconscious."

"See, that would be useful," Vic said to Mac.

"Uh, I'm not sure I want to wear all my problems on a bracelet for the whole world to see," Mac said, with a definite air of unease.

"We could never fit _all_ your problems on one bracelet," Vic murmured. "We'd just stick to the ones most likely to leave you unconscious on the street."

Just then, the door to the room opened again.

Mac looked up with a hopeful expression—Li Ann guessed he was eager for a rescue from the current conversation.

Li Jing and Meredith were in the doorway.

"Hello!" Li Jing said brightly, in Cantonese. She was clutching one of teddy bears they sold in the gift shop downstairs.

"Oh my God, Li Jing!" Mac said happily. "What are you doing here?"

"Li Ann told me you were in the hospital," Li Jing said. "My new foster mom called around and found out where you were. I wanted to say thank you for rescuing me." She held up the bear. "I brought you this."

"That's awesome," Mac said. "I don't have any teddy bears. I mean, my daughter has a lot. But I don't have any of my own."

Meredith, meanwhile, was looking around the crowded room. "Uh, hi everybody," she said. Her gaze stopped on Mac. "Oh," she said, sounding surprised. " _You're_ Mac. I know you."

"You do?" Mac said, looking cautiously blank.

"You're the guy who got shot at the Two-Ring Circus. Aren't you?"

"Oh," Mac said, and Li Ann saw the flicker of hesitation while he tried to decide whether that was something he should deny.

"Yes, that's him," she said quickly. Mac's adventure getting shot onstage in front of two hundred people had been too high-profile to bury, which was why they'd incorporated it into their ongoing cover identities. But maybe all that was a bit much to expect Mac to keep track of right now.

"Oh my God," Meredith said, rounding on Li Ann. "I _thought_ you looked familiar. You were in the show too! You guys did that dance together. It was great. Until that psycho asshole tried to kill you."

"Oh, er, thanks," Li Ann said, definitely not blushing.

Mike was staring at Mac. "You were _shot_?"

Jada's eyebrows had gone up. "This was last year, right? The same sex marriage fundraiser that got shot up by that white supremacist? I remember reading about it in the Globe and Mail. Mac, the performer who got shot was _you_?"

"It was just a graze," Mac murmured.

"You shielded a drag queen from the bullet with your body," she said, sounding a little stunned.

"Well, I was _trying_ to get us both out of the line of fire," Mac said, looking embarrassed.

"So this is something you've made a _habit_ of," she said. "Risking your life to save people."

"Er..." Mac said, looking lost.

Because of course the answer was yes, but it had also been his _job_ , and that was extremely classified.

But Jada didn't seem to need an actual answer.

"See?" Mike was saying to her. "I _told_ you. He's a fucking hero."

"What's everybody talking about?" Li Jing asked, looking around the room.

Li Ann patted the end of the bed on the other side of Mac's feet. "Sit here," she said. "I'll sum it up for you. There's a pretty great story involved."

"And give me the bear," Mac said, holding out his hand. "I want my bear."

As Li Jing accepted Li Ann's invitation and fulfilled Mac's request, Meredith pulled something out of her handbag—an electronic device about the size of small paperback book, with a keyboard and screen. She pressed some keys and then handed the device to Li Jing.

Li Jing looked at it, nodded, and handed it back to Meredith.

("That's Li Jing," Mike was saying to Jada in the background. "The girl we rescued.")

("Oh my god," Jada was saying in reply, "She's no older than Katie is.")

"What was that?" Mac asked, tucking the bear into the crook of his left arm, which was still tied up in the sling.

"Translation dictionary," Li Jing said. "She was telling me we're only going to stay for twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes?" Mac said in English, looking at Meredith. "That's not very long."

Meredith gave him a polite smile. "I'm worried about tiring you out." Her glance took in the hospital machinery surrounding him—the oxygen tubes and IV and heart rate monitor.

"Yeah," Vic said, looking a little anxious. "It's been a pretty busy afternoon." He leaned in and put a hand on Mac's forehead, as though checking him for fever. It was an intimate gesture and probably not consciously thought out—the heart rate monitor also displayed his temperature continuously.

Which, Li Ann noticed upon checking, had gone up half a degree since earlier in the afternoon.

"Actually he probably should rest," she agreed quietly.

"I am pretty tired," Mac said. "But I like having visitors. Maybe everybody can hang out for a bit, even if I've got to nap a little?"

"Sure," Meredith said. "We're not in a hurry to get anywhere else."

Mac smiled gently, and closed his eyes. "Good," he said.

"I'm going to tell Li Jing about the Two-Ring Circus," Li Ann announced in English.

"Maybe go light on the Dog Pack part of the story?" Vic suggested with a wince.

Li Ann rolled her eyes at him. "Don't worry. I'm going to focus on the good parts."

"Don't forget to tell her about my awesome leather pants," Mac whispered without opening his eyes.

Li Ann grinned. "That was definitely one of the good parts."

So Mac rested with his eyes closed, and Li Ann told the story, in Cantonese and English. She talked about meeting Jasmine-aka-Ben, coming up with the idea for the dance, recruiting Mac who'd been working as a bouncer at the time.

The story held together pretty well even with all of the Agency stuff excised. She could tell that Mac was still awake, listening, because every once in a while his lips twitched into a faint smile.

They'd been through so much together, the two of them. They had scars. But they also had happy memories—and they were building more and more of those every day.

Maybe they'd never be normal people. But Mac was learning how to live in the world, and have friends. And Li Ann, despite her continued secret-agent-hood, was also finding herself with more and more connections—people in the world who she cared about, and who cared about her.

She wasn't sure how she was going to make this work in the context of the Agency's strict secrecy, long-term.

But for now, she just enjoyed the warm feeling of being surrounded by the two men she cared about most in the world, new friends, and friendly acquaintances. Geneviève and Huang's family photo on the table, and Ben's bright bouquet of flowers, served to make the room feel even more filled with love.

The little girl in the brothel never could have imagined ending up here. But the fast-forward lines of Mac's VCR metaphor brought her here quickly, and Li Ann smiled. The present was a good place to be.


	21. Epilogue

Mac contemplated the stack of weights on the bench press machine. Sighed inwardly, and moved the pin to reduce the weight by 20 kilos. Lay down on the bench.

"Hey," Mike said, coming alongside. He was sweaty, and had a small white towel slung over his shoulders. "I finished the pull-downs."

"Yeah?" Mac said. "Good." He grasped the handles and pushed his arms up straight.

The weight was too low. He could barely feel it.

He didn't change anything, though—just slowly lowered the bar, and pushed it up again.

"Actually I only managed nine reps on the last set," Mike confessed.

Mac had told him to do three sets of fifteen. "I thought you said you'd kept up your training while I was sick?"

"Well, yeah, but ... I guess I did slack off," Mike said sheepishly. "Two sets of ten seemed like enough. And I lowered the weight."

Mac allowed himself an amused grin, and pushed the bar up again. Four, five. _Now_ he was starting to feel it. "And see, _this_ is why Jada decided to let you keep training with me. Without me, you'd never get that beach bod she's dreaming about."

Mike laughed. "So what's next?"

"That's it for weights," Mac said. "Just let me finish here and we'll do some sparring." Nine, ten. Fuck, his arms were really starting to burn, especially his left. A year ago, he would've been pressing half again this much weight without any problems.

Well, three weeks ago he'd been lying in a hospital bed struggling to breathe, and he'd had one arm in a sling, besides. So really, he was doing great.

He took thirty seconds to rest between sets. Considered, and lowered the weight by another ten kilos before he started again.

Vic had made him promise that he'd take it easy. Had made him repeat the promise about six times, most recently before kissing good-bye at the Bouchard-Wongs' front door while Mike waited out front to drive him to the gym.

Mac was currently banned from driving because he'd started having dizzy spells. Which was probably because of the PTSD-meds, but Patricia had decided to wait a few more weeks to see if they went away rather than immediately adjusting his dosage.

The thing was—the meds were working. Mac hadn't had a nightmare in weeks. Not only that, but the foggy, depressed feeling was gone, _and_ he wasn't losing time caught up in thoughts about Michael.

It wasn't like he'd _forgotten_ all the crappy stuff about his past. It just somehow didn't seem to want to flood his present, anymore.

It was a little unnerving to having his state of mind so thoroughly turned around by drugs. Especially drugs that Patricia was giving him. But at the same time—it was _such_ a _relief_.

So a little hopefully-temporary dizziness was a small price to pay. At least he hadn't had any sexual-dysfunction side effects. Since he'd gotten out of the hospital, his sex life had been _great_ —Vic couldn't seem to keep his hands off of him.

On the last couple of reps of the second set, Mac's left shoulder started twinging—not in an out-of-shape-muscles way, but in a not-quite-healed-stab-wound way. So he decided that two sets was enough.

"Okay, let's—" Mac started, sitting up. And then, _oh shit_ , speaking of dizzy spells—he lay back down on the bench quickly, before he could topple over sideways.

"Hm?" Mike said, turning back towards him. "Everything okay there?"

"Yeah," Mac said reflexively, thoughts quickly racing towards some excuse to explain his slightly-prolonged recovery period on the bench.

But then he caught himself.

That was a reflex of the _old_ Mac, the guy who lived in a dangerous world where he literally risked getting killed if he showed weakness.

The _new_ Mac lived in a _nice_ world full of kind people who wanted to help him, and that was good, because the new Mac also had fucked-up lungs and PTSD and dizzy spells and maybe a heart condition (appointment with the cardiologist: still pending).

"Actually, no," Mac amended. "Dizzy spell."

"Oh." Mike looked concerned. "Anything I can do to help?"

See? Kind people who wanted to help him.

"Maybe bring me my water bottle?"

A moment later, Mike was pressing Mac's nearly-full water bottle into his hand. It was a squeeze bottle with a valve top, so he could drink from it without sitting up. He did.

His new MedicAlert bracelet slid along his wrist and clinked against itself as he lifted his hand and lowered it again.

He'd been wearing the bracelet for four days, and he hated it.

It was that same tension—wanting to hide his weaknesses, versus trusting that strangers, given accurate information about him, would be more likely to use it to help him than to harm him.

Mac had a lot of damage but all of it was hidden. He might not be able to fight at the level that he used to be able to, but he _looked_ like he could. He was still tall and fit-looking and moved like a fighter. If he had to walk into a nest of criminals and convince them through sheer physical presence that he was not a guy to fuck with, he thought he still could.

But not with the fucking bracelet on.

It took all his secret damage and put it out there for the world to see.

The worst thing was, they'd put the PTSD on it.

"That doesn't even make sense," Mac had objected when they were filling out the forms. "It's not a _medical_ condition."

"Dr. Germain said we should include it," Vic had said mildly, going ahead and putting the block letters carefully into the blanks without even waiting for the argument to finish. "The point of this is to let the people helping you know what's going on if you can't speak for yourself. So the most likely scenario is your lungs seizing up. The _second_ most likely scenario is you're having a bad flashback."

"That's not going to happen," Mac had assured him. "The new meds are working. I haven't had a flashback at night in more than a week. And I haven't had one in the _day_ since—"

"Since two and a half weeks ago when you ended up locked in the psych ward," Vic had interrupted dryly. "I'm glad that your nights have gotten easier. Really, really glad. But I think it's a little premature to declare you cured. It's going on the bracelet."

So now Mac had the snaky, shiny bracelet, signalling to everyone who saw him that there was something _wrong_ with him.

Its only redeeming feature was that it seemed to make Vic feel better. He'd fastened it around Mac's wrist with an air of relief, like it was a protective charm.

Speaking of feeling better—Mac sat up carefully. The world remained steady, and everything was fine. "Okay," he said. "I'm ready."

"Are you sure?" Mike asked, with cautious frown. "First day back. Maybe just the weights was enough."

Mac had a sudden suspicion. "By any chance ... did Vic call you and tell you to make sure I took it easy?"

"Last night," Mike admitted. "He said not to tell you."

"Wow, you are _terrible_ at resisting interrogation," Mac said. "Remind me not to tell you any of my deep dark secrets."

"I _already_ know your deep dark secrets," Mike said—clearly aiming for a lightly teasing tone, but it came out a little uneasy.

 _Oh man, not even close._ But it was understandable that he _thought_ he did. "And I trust you to keep them," Mac said. "I was just joking around. But I really do want to do a little combat. We'll take it super easy, okay?"

Mike offered Mac a hand up from the bench, which Mac took even though he didn't need it. Meanwhile, he adjusted his plans—if Vic had recruited Mike to his cause, then Mike was likely to call things off if Mac got even a little out of breath. So maybe no free sparring today. They could just do some drills. Striking and blocking, with a bit of movement.

Mac explained the plan and showed Mike the moves he was thinking of, and Mike nodded seriously, paying close attention and asking for clarification in a couple of places.

Then they ran through the sequence a few times slowly, swapping roles each time.

"Okay, let's try at full speed," Mac said.

Despite what he'd said, he didn't go all-out—he adjusted himself to Mike's level, holding himself back so that Mike would have time to block each strike. Then they switched roles, and Mac easily turned all of Mike's attacks aside. "Hey, are you going easy on me?" Mac asked.

"Um, maybe a little," Mike admitted. "I don't want to push you too hard."

"I'm not going to have any trouble just _blocking_ you," Mac said. "Seriously. Try again and don't hold back."

Mike looked a little hesitant, but he nodded. They started again, and the first couple of strikes had more strength and speed than the previous set, and Mac still turned them aside easily, at which point it was clear that Mike fully stopped holding back. The blows came even harder and faster but also more sloppily, which made most of them _easier_ to block. Mac grinned, feeling for the first time since he'd gotten sick like he was _almost_ really fighting. He blocked everything efficiently—moving so little, his chest only barely started to feel a _tiny_ bit tighter—and then on impulse he ended it with a counterattack that he hadn't previously shown Mike, hard outstretched fingers ready to collapse a windpipe if he didn't pull back.

Mike froze, looking down at the hand at his throat. Mac's fingertips were only barely brushing his skin.

"Okay," Mike said. "I get it. You could kill me at any time."

"Sure," Mac said easily. "But I never would."

Mike stepped back a little, putting a little more than an arm's length in between them. Then he glanced over at the only other people currently in the gym's large, airy aerobics room—a trio of septuagenarians doing tai chi together at the far end. Mike lowered his voice, gave Mac an uncertain look, and said, "Have you? Killed people with your bare hands?"

Mac hesitated.

"Shit," Mike said softly.

"I didn't say yes," Mac pointed out.

Mike's jaw tightened. "If it was 'no,' you would've just said so."

Mac shrugged, accepting that logic.

"I'm sorry," Mike said. "I think I'm still ... processing what happened the last time we worked out. The fact that I've seen you ... do, what you did, in the basement."

"Uh..." Mac was honestly feeling a little confused by this line of conversation. Mike was still a little freaked out by the triad thing, okay. But—"What did _you_ think we were doing all this combat training for?"

"For exercise," Mike said. "To get in shape. Because it's fun. Not to _hurt_ anybody."

"Not even in self-defence?"

"Sure, in theory," Mike said. "I guess. But that's not something that's actually going to _happen_."

Mac stared at him. "Do you really think that?"

Mike stared back at him, wordlessly uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, in the background, one of the tai chi ladies was placing her feet wrong. It was really bugging Mac.

"Excuse me for a second," Mac said, and left Mike to do whatever processing he needed to do.

Mac came up to the three women and stood respectfully until he caught their attention.

"Yes?" said the one on the end.

"Excuse me," he said, and bowed slightly, with an apologetic smile. "I was wondering if I could give a little advice."

He addressed the woman in the middle, but she frowned and shook her head, and the one on the end who'd spoken first said, "She doesn't speak English."

"Cantonese?" Mac asked hopefully.

The woman on the end looked surprised, but the woman in the middle shook her head again and said, in Cantonese, "Mandarin."

Eugh, Mac's Mandarin was pretty terrible. He gathered his thoughts. "Grandmother," he said deferentially, "May I tell you about your feet?"

The woman's face lit up and she gave a surprised chuckle. Hopefully he hadn't mispronounced a word and accidentally said something obscene. "Yes, go ahead," she said.

She was wearing a MedicAlert bracelet, he noticed. Like his. He'd never noticed them before, but now he was seeing them all over the place.

"If you turn your foot like this," he said, demonstrating, "you will be better—" he couldn't remember how to say 'balanced' "—you will not fall down."

Looking rather bemused, the woman shifted her foot the way he'd advised. "Thank you," she said. Then she had a back-and-forth exchange with the two others, too fast for him to follow, but they cackled gleefully at the end of it and the woman on the right asked him, in English, "Are you married?"

Mac laughed, and bowed. "Yes, grandmother. I am." And he made his retreat.

Mike had been watching, looking slightly perplexed. "I didn't know you knew tai chi," he said.

In the background, the three women resumed their sequence of moves. The stance of the woman in the middle was much better now.

"I don't," Mac said. "But the three of them were doing it together, so I could tell what her mistake was. I'm pretty good at figuring that kind of thing out."

"Yeah," Mike said, thoughtfully. "So you just—had to go over? And fix it?"

Mac wasn't sure what Mike was getting at. "Why wouldn't I help?" he asked. "If I can."

Mike shook his head. "Mac, how did you get involved in a triad?" he asked. "I just ... can't picture it."

Oh. "Well, I was only fourteen," Mac said, cautiously. Quietly—so his new friends wouldn't hear. One of them caught his eye and smiled, so he gave a little wave. "I was living on the street. In Hong Kong."

Mike looked shocked. "Where was your mother?"

"Dead," Mac said. And he was _not_ going to be telling that story in detail at this time, thank you very much.

But Mike frowned. "Dead? But—weren't you talking about your mom with Paul, after he came at you with the knife?"

Huh? Oh, shit, right—Mac had used 'mom' as a code word for the Director, at one point. "Ah, that wasn't my _real_ mom I was talking about," Mac said. "Or his. Uh, actually she's more like his ... boss. We just call her 'mom' because, um, it's basically a joke." Smooth, Ramsey, real smooth.

"So you were younger than Katie, when you got involved in the gang," Mike said, naming his older daughter, the fifteen-year-old skateboarder. "You couldn't have understood what you were getting into."

"No," Mac agreed. "I guess I didn't. Not for a long time."

"I think we should call it a day," Mike said.

"Sure," Mac said. They'd been pretty much done, anyway. "Mike ... is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Mike said. "Everything's fine." His tone belied his words—he definitely had reservations.

"My past is my past," Mac said quietly. "I can't do anything about that. But you've gotta believe I'd never hurt you, Mike. Or your girls. I'd defend you with my life, if it came to that."

Mike took a sharp breath, like he was about to laugh, but he didn't. "Christ, Mac," he said. "I believe you. You really do scare me, though."

"Um, sorry?"

Mike shook his head. "Forget it. Don't worry, I'm not—I'm not backing out. I'd like to keep working with you. Even if I never get into another real fight in the rest of my life, I'd like to know that I'd do better than the last time, if I ever did."

"Great," Mac said, relieved. For a second there he'd been worried. "And are you still coming to the party this afternoon?"

"Oh," Mike said, blinking. "Right. Yes, absolutely. We'll be there."

* * *

Ben, Casey and Rebekah weren't the first party guests to arrive, but they were the first of _Mac's_ guests.

Vic whisked their coats away to the bedroom where such things were being stacked, and Mac found the appropriate sheet of labels.

"Oh," Ben said with bemusement, accepting the name tag to stick to his lapel. "This is very ... specific."

 _Benjamin Goldman_ , it said. _Friend of Mac and Li Ann._

Mac was already wearing one. _Mac Ramsey. Taylor's biological father and nanny._

"Huang made them," Mac explained, peeling the ones for Casey and Rebekah from the sheet. _Partner_ and _mother_ of _Benjamin G._ , respectively. "He likes clear labels and well-defined relationships."

"I would think that I'm Vic's friend, too," Ben mentioned. "I would _hope_."

Mac shrugged. "Huang drew a whole tree. Everybody links back to Taylor. After a while, we just left him to it."

"Well, it will be nice to know everybody's name," Rebekah said, sticking her own label on. "Come here Mac, let me kiss you. It's so good to see you back on your feet!"

Mac bent down to accept her kiss on his cheek. Smiling. He was glad they'd been able to come—his best friends in the world, apart from Vic and Li Ann.

It had been really sweet of Huang and Geneviève to allow Mac, Vic and Li Ann to invite some of their own friends to the party. 'Not more than ten,' Geneviève had specified, with a wary eye on total numbers and the capacity of her house.

Putting together everyone they knew and liked in the city, Mac and his partners had come up with seven.

"Here, before I forget," Ben said, proffering an envelope. "The cheques."

"Thanks," Mac said, and tucked it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

In lieu of birthday gifts for Taylor, they'd asked for donations to two charities—a homeless shelter for women with children, and an organization that helped street kids.

It had been Vic's idea, but the other adults of the household had quickly and enthusiastically backed the idea. 'Because, my god,' Geneviève had said, 'she already has _enough toys_.'

Mike and Jada arrived a little later. They accepted their labels and wandered off in search of finger food.

Mac was able to appreciate the usefulness of Huang's labelling-system a few minutes later. He was passing through the kitchen in search of Taylor—he'd found one of her socks in the hallway, which implied that she was at least 50% barefoot, and he figured he should get her feet to match one way or the other—when he noticed Mike and Jada introducing themselves to Ben and his companions on the basis of their name tags.

"How do you know Mac?" Mike asked Ben.

"Oh, my, that is _quite_ a story," Ben said. "We were in a show together, and he saved my life."

" _You're_ the drag queen?" Jada asked, sounding delighted.

Mac left them to it, and went down into the basement. Taylor was down there with Huang, and Huang's brother, and Huang's brother's ten-year-old daughter. The daughter was playing dolls with Taylor, while Huang and his brother were drinking punch and chatting.

"Hiding already?" Mac asked.

Huang looked a little rueful. "It's pretty noisy up there."

"Half the guests aren't even here yet," Mac pointed out, and crouched down to Taylor's level. "Hey, Taytay. Do you want two socks or no socks?"

"No socks!" Taylor declared, and pulled off the other one.

Mac accepted it, and pocketed both.

"I'll come up when it's time for the cake," Huang promised.

"Okay," Mac said. "When more kids get here, I'll send them down to play with Taylor."

" _That_ could get him upstairs _sooner_ than the cake," Huang's brother said, sounding amused.

* * *

When Mac got back upstairs, Li Ann was just arriving, with Meredith and Li Jing in tow—she'd given them a drive from downtown, since Meredith didn't have a car.

Li Jing greeted him with a happy, high-pitched squeal and a hug. She was somewhat encumbered by the large, brightly-wrapped box in her arms.

"We said no presents," Vic objected mildly, coming up behind Mac.

"She was very insistent," Meredith said, with a wry grin. "I figured—it meant a lot to Li Jing, and it couldn't _hurt_. I did bring a donation for the charities, too."

"Thank you for the gift," Mac said politely to Li Jing, giving her a little bow. "I'm sure Taylor will love it. How are you doing?"

"I started school," Li Jing said. "Just on Wednesday. It's all English lessons, no regular subjects. There's kids from all the grades in my class—there's eighteen of us, and they're from fifteen different countries! There's one other boy from China, but he's from the north and he's only twelve."

Vic, meanwhile, handed out the name tags and murmured the explanation to Meredith. Li Jing was _friend of Li Ann and Mac_ ; Meredith was _foster mother of Li Jing_.

"There's blank ones and a sharpie in case you don't like how Huang labelled you," Vic pointed out. "Geneviève insisted."

"No, this is fine," Meredith said, tracing the words 'foster-mother' lightly with her finger before she stuck the label to her chest.

Mac noticed that Vic's tag had already undergone a sharpied alteration. Where before it had identified him as _Taylor's nanny and partner of Mac,_ the word 'partner' had been crossed out and replaced with 'boyfriend'.

Mac touched the edit, and looked questioningly at Vic.

"It was too ambiguous," Vic said. "People were reading it as 'work partner'—since we're Taylor's nannies together."

"So you fixed it." Mac felt a big grin growing on his face. "Remember when you didn't even want to hold _hands_ with me in public?"

"There was an adjustment period," Vic admitted, rolling his shoulders sheepishly.

"I told an old Chinese lady that we were married, this morning at the gym," Mac mentioned.

"Huh?"

"Well, she was hitting on me. Or possibly thinking of setting me up with her granddaughter."

Vic laughed, and shook his head. "I love you, Mac."

* * *

Mac didn't expect, rounding a corner of the living room with a plate of cake in one hand and a plastic cup of punch in the other, to run into the Director.

She turned to look at him, pinning him with an up-and-down sweep of her gaze that made him feel naked.

He swallowed the undignified yelp that had wanted to emerge from his throat, fixed a careless grin on his face, and said, "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

The Director shrugged. "Taking stock of what I have wrought." Her name tag was hand-lettered in black sharpie; it just said _professional contact of Geneviève_. There was a distinct lack of a name.

Mac breathed in his courage, stepped into the Director's personal space, and said quietly to the wall behind her, "If you've crashed the party to threaten us..."

She chuckled. "Is that what you think of me? I'll have you know, I was _invited_. Huang made me one of his silly name tags; it said 'Taylor's fairy godmother'. I don't reject the designation, but I found it ... inappropriate to advertise."

Mac had seen a lot of Disney movies in the past six months. "Fairy godmother, huh?" he asked. "The good one, or the evil one?"

The Director bared her teeth in a smile. "Oh Mac, do you even need to ask?"

And suddenly, like a miracle, _both_ Vic and Li Ann were coming up by his side.

"Hi," Li Ann was saying to the Director, casually, like to a work colleague. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"I saw her born," the Director pointed out. "I've been to every one of her birthday parties so far."

Vic, meanwhile, was tucking an arm around Mac's waist. "Are you okay?" he whispered.

Actually ... "No," Mac whispered back. "Take my punch."

"Huh?" Vic said.

"The punch and the cake," Mac whispered, more urgently. The room had started spinning, and he didn't want to make a mess.

"Uh oh," he heard Vic said. And, "Li Ann, help!" And Mac couldn't follow what happened next, but he didn't have anything in his hands anymore, and he didn't topple over, either—firm hands directed him and there was a sensation of falling but he ended up at the end of the quickly-cleared couch, slumped against someone—Vic.

"It's okay," Vic was saying to someone—to everyone, maybe. "He has dizzy spells because of a medication he's on. It's nothing to worry about."

When Mac's head cleared enough to see what was going on again, he noticed the Director perched across from him on a footstool, holding what were probably his own punch and cake.

"I've never had _that_ effect on you before," she said dryly.

Vic was gently rubbing the back of Mac's neck. "Is it going away?" he asked.

Mac started to nod, thought better of it, and just said, "Yeah."

"Does Patricia know about this?" the Director asked.

"Yes," Li Ann said. She was perched on the arm of the couch, on Mac's other side. "It started right after he got out of the hospital. She thinks we should wait a few more weeks to see if it goes away on its own."

"All right," the Director said. "I defer to her medical judgment. Good thing I'm not sending you into firefights anymore, isn't it?"

" _Yes_ ," Vic said, maybe a little more emphatically than was called for. "That's a very good thing."

"Hey, I'm feeling better," Mac said. "Can I have my food back?"

The Director handed it over, and Mac quickly drained his cup of punch.

"Give me a bite of your cake," Li Ann said.

Mac raised an eyebrow at her. "You could get your own piece."

"I _had_ my own piece," Li Ann admitted. "I finished it. And there isn't any more left."

Mac rolled his eyes at her, but fed her a piece with a good helping of icing on it. She smiled happily at him, chewing.

"Well, I'm off to pay my respects to the birthday girl," the Director said. She stood up. "It was good seeing the three of you. I wish you all well. See you on Monday, Li Ann."

Mac managed a little wave to the Director's retreating back.

"Seriously, are you okay?" Vic asked him in an undertone.

"Yeah," Mac said. "Close encounters with the Director are always a little scary."

"So you decided to faint?" Li Ann asked, arching an eyebrow. "Like a possum?"

Mac glared at her. "That was a _coincidence_."

She shrugged, unrepentant.

Mac fed her another piece of cake to make her smirk go away.

"Hey," Ben said, coming up to them. "Everything okay? I heard—"

"Mac swooned," Li Ann said around the piece of cake.

"I had a short dizzy spell," Mac clarified. "I'm not giving you any more cake if you keep making fun of me, by the way."

"You're almost out of cake anyway," Li Ann said.

"Well, I'm glad to see that you're all right," Ben said, relaxing into their joking tone. "How are you enjoying the party, overall? It must be ... a little complicated, emotionally. I imagine."

"Only one person has been forward enough to _ask_ me about the biological mother thing," Li Ann said.

"I've had four people ask me about 'biological father slash nanny'," Mac mentioned. "Mostly just parents of Taylor's playmates. Geneviève and Huang's close friends already know the deal."

"It is surprisingly convenient, being able to see how everybody connects by looking at their name tags," Ben said. "Do you think Huang did it for you?"

"What do you mean?" Vic asked.

Ben glanced around and then sat down next to Vic on the couch, leaning in so that he could make a tight little conversation group with Mac, Vic and Li Ann. "To make it easier for you to manage who knows what about you," he said.

They'd briefed Ben yesterday, in preparation for the party—making sure he knew who else at the party knew what about them. As the only other person besides Geneviève and Huang who knew _everything_ , he had a role in making sure that their cover stories survived the party intact.

"Mike and Jada know that Mac was with the _Tangs_?" he'd asked at one point, looking shocked.

"No," Mac had clarified. "They know I was involved in a _triad_. Nothing more specific. And they don't know that Li Ann ever was."

"But Li Jing knows that I worked in a brothel when I was twelve, and that after that Mac and I were fostered together in the home of a wealthy man," Li Ann had added.

"But Mike doesn't speak Cantonese, and Li Jing doesn't speak English," Vic had pointed out. "So they're not going to connect any dots."

"Anyway, Mike and Jada won't say anything about my past," Mac had said. "They understand that's not a safe thing to talk about."

"The thing that worries me," Vic had said, "is that Li Jing's seen Li Ann working at the Agency. _With_ Paul, for that matter."

"All she knows is that it was a government building," Li Ann had said. "And I work for an adoption agency that collaborates with Children's Aid. She won't think anything of it."

"Mike knows Paul in a very different way," Mac had mentioned with a worried frown.

"Okay, but _Paul_ 's not going to be at the party, is he?" Ben had asked, a little helplessly.

"God I hope not," Vic had said.

In the event: Paul was not at the party. And Li Jing had gone down into the basement to play with the kids, so the only people actually interested in talking about Mac and Li Ann were Mike, Jada, Casey and Rebekah—and Ben had dominated that whole initial conversation with his version of the Two-Ring Circus story. When he'd left them, Mike and Rebekah had already moved on to talking about trends in Toronto real estate.

"So that's going fine," Ben concluded. "Mike and Jada seem nice, by the way."

"Yeah," Vic said. "Mike drove Mac to the hospital after Paul stabbed him. He's a good guy."

"Oy vey," Ben murmured. "Now I feel like I should stand Mike a drink."

Mac gave Ben a puzzled look. "Why?"

Ben just shook his head. "I'm not sure if you're aware how much the experience of being your friend is _unlike_ the experience of being friends with a regular person," he said.

Mac gave Ben a searching look. He didn't quite sound like he was complaining, but ... "Sorry," Mac said anyway. "I'm trying."

"To be a regular person?"

"I'm trying _really hard_ ," Mac insisted.

He felt Vic squeezing his hand. "I know," Vic murmured. "You're really bad at it, though."

"I don't think you'll ever manage to be a regular person. But it's a good thing for Li Jing that you're not," Li Ann reminded him, ruffling his hair.

"And for me," Ben added. "Don't think I'll ever forget that."

Mac leaned into Li Ann's touch, and kept the tight grip on Vic's hand. "I thought everything would be easy once I got out of the Agency. It hasn't been, though. When I wasn't constantly scared anymore, I sort of fell apart. And even once we got _that_ fixed, things were still fucked up, because I have to be careful all the time or I'm not going to be able to breathe. And I'm going to keep getting sick."

"We don't know that," Vic said, with a sort of brittle forced optimism.

Mac shook his head. "It's happened twice now. It wasn't just bad luck the first time. My lungs are fucked up, Vic. We knew I couldn't be an agent anymore—turns out I'm not even any good as a _nanny_."

"Taylor loves you," Vic said.

"Yeah, but how many days since we got here have I actually been any _help_ looking after her?" Mac asked.

Vic didn't answer, but the question had been rhetorical. At a rough estimate, Mac figured that the ratio was well under half.

"I don't think I can do this," Mac finished, in a small voice. He hadn't meant to say all that. Certainly not in front of Ben, in the middle of a party. But the MedicAlert bracelet was shiny on his wrist, and he'd nearly fainted for no reason in front of the Director, and he couldn't even _pick up_ Taylor anymore because he was worried that he'd get dizzy and drop her. "I don't think I'm doing any good here. I think I should leave."

"Leave the party?" Vic asked, misunderstanding. "If you want to go upstairs and lie down for a while, that's fine."

"He means _leave_ ," Li Ann said. "Quit. Resign. Move out." She said it flatly, not passing judgment, just helping to clarify his meaning. But her fingers dug a little more sharply into his hair.

"I'm not any _good_ at this," Mac repeated again, explaining himself. Owning his failure.

"Well, you're right, you're not very good at being a regular person," Ben said. "Case in point: you somehow think you only deserve to be part of a family if you're healthy and useful. Thinking about what you call your 'family' when you're talking about your past, I can see how you'd end up thinking that. But Mac, that wasn't a family, that was a crime syndicate."

Off to the side, someone cleared their throat. Mac looked up and saw Geneviève. She smiled down at him, and fixed everybody else with an arch look. "Sorry to listen in," she said. "I'd heard that Mac had had an episode of some sort, and I came to see if he was all right."

"Er, how much did you hear?" Mac asked, uncomfortably.

"Enough to conclude that it's good that nobody _else_ was listening," Geneviève said. "Also: haven't we been over this, Mac? We have no plans to turn you away. I told you about my brother. Believe me, he was a _much_ more difficult and less useful member of the household than you are. And yet."

"I'm not really your family, though," he said. Hunching in on himself. Watching the light flash on the bracelet.

"Of course you are," she said. "You were from the moment that Taylor was born. We just didn't know it yet." She paused, and then added with amusement, "Besides, Vic is a very _good_ nanny. And he goes where you go."

"Mac," Li Ann said levelly, hand in his hair, "I'm sorry you had a dizzy spell in front of the Director. That must have made you feel very uncomfortable and helpless. But stop being stupid. Do you need a hug?"

Mac blinked up at her. She smiled benevolently down at him—confident and comforting, slightly teasing, unambiguously loving.

"Oh fuck," he said. "Yes."

"Squish over, then," she said, and wriggled down into the tight spot between Mac's hips and the arm of the couch. She wrapped her arms around him, and squeezed. "Come on, Vic," she said, the words half-muffled against Mac's shoulder.

"Ha," Vic puffed out a helpless laugh, and joined from the other side. "We'll do this as many times as we need to, you know."

"It's going to be a lot," Mac predicted, sheepishly.

"Are you starting to feel better?" Li Ann asked without loosening her grip.

"Yes," Mac admitted. He really was. With the two of them holding him, he didn't think he could ever fall.

"I don't think there's any room for me in there," Ben said from off to the side. "But please consider yourself additionally hugged. And I'll give you a rain check if you want a real one later."

"Likewise," Geneviève said. "So can I go and see about opening up more snacks, without worrying about losing a member of my household?"

"Yes," Vic answered for him. "We're going to hold onto him until he's okay."

"This always works," Li Ann added. "He really likes being hugged."

Mac was starting to think that they were teasing him, a bit.

Okay, they were _definitely_ teasing him a bit. But that was okay.

Ben was right. _Trust_ was the hardest part about trying to be a normal person.

But he'd get there. This was a good start.

With Vic and Li Ann's arms around him, anything seemed possible.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not an active fandom; I write because it's fun, and not for any hope of feedback. That said—if you got this far and have enjoyed the ongoing adventures of Mac, Vic and Li Ann, and feel like saying 'hi', I'd love to hear from you!


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